Ed Miliband says he’s proud to be a ’socialist’

LONDON - UK Labour Party leader Ed Miliband said that he is a socialist, and added that he wanted to be a part of the student protests this week over the rise in tuition fees, but could not manage time as he was busy “doing something else.”

According to the Telegraph, the Labour leader gave a series of radio interviews yesterday ahead of a major speech at the party’s National Policy Forum in Gillingham on Saturday.

On being asked by Nicky Campbell on BBC Radio 5 Live “Are you a socialist?” he replied: “Yeah, I am a socialist. I am not embarrassed about it… My Dad would have considered himself a socialist too…. He would have said we need to have public ownership of everything, of many of the important things in society.”

“I don’t subscribe to that view. What I do say is that there are big unfairnesses in society and part of the job of Government is to bring about social justice and to tackle those unfairness and that is why I am a politician, that is why I am in politics,” he added.

Talking about the demonstrations against increases in tuition fees, he said that they were fuelled by “justified” anger about tuition fee rises.

“I said I was going to go and talk to them at some point. I was tempted to go out and talk to them,” but “I think I was doing something else at the time, actually.”

The protests had led to the arrests of 35 students and injured seven police officers on Wednesday as initially peaceful marches again flared into violence.

Meanwhile his spokesman said the commitment to socialism was on every Labour membership card, and that Miliband would not attend any marches but rather concentrate “on holding David Cameron and Nick Clegg to account in the House of Commons.” (ANI)