Category Archives: Labour Leadership

It’s time to pipe down and support Ed

Attacking Ed has become the ‘normal’ thing to do. First the right of the party attack him for lacking direction and, well let’s be honest, not being David enough. Then it is the turn of the left, admonishing him for taking the only sensible political option and opposing the strikes, encouraging instead more negotiation and concessions from both sides. Each day as I flick though Labourlist, Labour Uncut or The Guardian the very people who should be helping shape the future direction of the party are instead wasting their time writing petty, self-indulgent pieces putting down our leader whilst offering no viable alternative.

I understand how tempting it is, indeed it is something I took part in when Gordon Brown was in charge, but then look where that got us. At best the public ignore it, making us irrelevant. At worst they find it an absolute turn-off.

I voted for Ed, though I know a lot of you didn’t. I didn’t vote for him because I thought he was a ready made PM in waiting, but because he had a vision. He spoke of a new kind of politics, he engaged thousands of young volunteers into his campaign, some of who had never been involved in any kind of politics before, and he felt like a genuine break from the past. In return for that promise I understood it might take a while for him to get really motoring. For me he is the right leader at the right time, someone to grow into the role as the party grows again out of the ashes of the New Labour era.

For this to work however he needs the best in his party lined-up behind him, not taking pot-shots from the sidelines. I want to see the great and the good going up against each other on schools, health, defence – pushing the party to go further and deliver more radical policy alternatives than ever before. Whilst we are it, let’s start really hammering the coalition. Whilst we are bitching at one another they are systematically destroying everything we hold dear, and we are letting them.

Over the last few weeks we have started to hear more about the kind of party Ed Miliband wants to lead. ‘The Squeezed Middle’ and ‘Promise of a Generation’ are beginnings of a narrative that I hope will end up in detailed policy that will resonate on the doorstep and deliver a genuine alternative to this cruel and unforgiving government.

In the meantime I would love to read more about policy and less about Ed’s leadership – let’s get behind him, campaign as one against the coalition and build a party ready to take power again.

Ed’s Speech – Early signs of the leader he will become

Anyone expecting an electric start to Ed Miliband’s leadership will have been sorely disappointed. He played down the idea of this being the most important speech of his career and instead delivered a safe, solid performance. That is not to say there were no talking points, far from it, as I’ll discuss in a moment. Just that we are going to have to wait a little longer for the detail of whist his leadership means.

The word cloud above tells the real story of his speech – ‘change’ and ‘new generation’ are the stand out phrases… It is clear he thinks that he can steal the mantle of change from the coalition and turn it into a tangible vote winner for Labour. Sceptics suggest the government is just too new for any change message to be effective but I am not so sure. Ed Miliband has been hugely popular among young voters (as any photo of his massive volunteer led campaign team will attest to) who buy into a vision that politics needs a fundamental shift if it is to remain relevant in the 21st century. There are plenty of unhappy Lib-Dems too who feel their party has not quite matched actions to the rhetoric when it comes to changing the way politics does business – genuine change will be music to their disaffected ears.

Speaking of disaffected Lib-Dems, this speech had plenty to woo them back to their rightful home within the Labour party. Ed showed real humility when admitting that the party was wrong to be relaxed about people getting filthy rich. Relative wealth is just as an important indicator of a fair society as absolute wealth. He also showed no mercy when it came to Iraq. Rather than skirt round it, he squared up to it, denounced the decision to go to war as wrong and moved on. Most of the conference floor breathed a sigh of relief and applauded, the absence of applause from most of the former cabinet (Harriet Harman excepted bless her) will only help cement the fact the party has moved on.

By the end of the speech he had clearly won most of conference around, if not yet the country or commentariat. For me though it cemented my views and confirmed once and for all I voted for the right person. Ed’s campaign was all about hope and change for the future – an opportunity to redefine the centre-ground of politics, to set the agenda rather than just follow it. His speech today, although not perfect, suggests he will not shirk from this ambition as leader.

The election was fair – and everyone needs to get over it.

I have heard a lot from my Tory friends over the last few days about how the Labour leadership election was corrupt, unfair and even undemocratic. It is all complete tosh – people need to get their head around a couple of things.

1) Being leader of the Labour party is more than just the title suggests – it also makes you the figurehead of the Labour movement. A movement that stems from a collective of working people, academics, party members, as well as elected politicians. The electoral college is not perfect, but it is the best we have in ensuring all these groups are heard and represented.

2) Newspaper columnists deliberately deceive when they talk about ‘a Union vote’. The truth is that nearly a quarter of a million individual votes were counted in the Union and affiliate section. These were not votes by Union barons, but by working people like you and me.

3) The same newspapers suggest that unions such as Unite and GMB, who promoted their preferred candidate within the election literature sent out to members. That they did – their democratically elected executives had a preference and they shared that with their members – is this really worse, or indeed somehow more persuasive than the very much unelected editors of The Mirror, The Times, The FT and others all heavily promoting their preferred candidates?

As I have already stated the electoral college is not perfect. It is a complicated system, designed as a compromise to different interests – and not one that endears itself to the electorate.  I would prefer to see an American style primary of all registered supporters to select future leaders – a system that encourages potential leaders to engage not just with activists but also the wider public.

But it seems to me that the electoral college is a start to this – Labour goes further than any other party in widening access to the election, and should be applauded not vilified.

Mandelson misses the point. Ed Miliband is not pre-New Labour, he has moved beyond it.

Peter Mandleson’s comments this morning is just one example of some increasingly negative campaigning by a number of the leadership contenders campaign teams. After 2 months of generally positive relations with only a few weeks to go and the pressure increasing, suddenly it is fair game to go on the attack. But playing this game is both short-sighted and ultimately futile. Does any one of them really want to inherit a divided party, of which great swathes hold you personally responsible for the failure of their preferred candidate? All the potential leaders need to take a deep breath, reel in their supporters and continue to deliver a positive, issue-based campaign.

And this is exactly what Ed Miliband has been doing. Whilst Peter Mandleson tours the TV studios in Millbank talking in ever more desperate soundbites, Ed is touring the country, listening to real people and realising the New Labour brand is dead.

That New Labour did some great things is undeniable. The Minimum Wage, Equality Legislation and huge investment in the NHS and Education are things we should rightly be proud of, but only a fool would deny it’s limitations. It’s control freakery, it’s disregard for civil liberties, it’s love affair with the super-wealthy (and the policies born of that love affair) caused disillusionment in communities up and down the country. New Labour has had it’s time – we should offer it our thanks and move on.

And this is what Ed is doing. On education, for example, he recognises that whilst people supported expanding the number of University places, tuition fees were unfair and created a barrier-to-entry for those from poorer backgrounds. The result? A pledge to abolish fees and create a graduate tax. For me though the key to his campaign is fairness. As I said earlier the creation of the National Minimum Wage was a great achievement, but Labour didn’t get the credit they deserved for it. Why? Because offering a few extra pounds an hour to the poorest in society whilst doing nothing to reign-in the salaries of the richest can never be deemed fair. Put simply, how can it be right that a CEO can earn up to 200 times the salary of the person who cleans his office? By campaigning for a living-wage and looking into the creation of a high-pay commission for both the public and private sectors. Ed shows both an understanding of the issues and a willingness to tackle them that moves him far beyond the limitations of New Labour.

So, Lord Mandleson can deliver as many warnings as he likes, but he and his nostalgic pals fundamentally miss the point. Ed’s campaign is not about taking the party back to a pre-New Labour era, he can’t for he has already moved beyond it.

Ed Miliband Latest Campaign E-mail – read and vote!

For those of you who are not yet members of the Labour Party (and remember, time is running out – you have until the 8th September if you want to vote in the leadership election). Here is Ed Miliband’s latest campaign e-mail. As you know, I think he is the person to best lead Labour at this time – his vision, his values and his ability to engage across the spectrum all make him the ideal candidate. Have a read below and have a peek at the video and see what you think.

Throughout this vital leadership election, I’ve said that Labour must change to win; that we should be discussing how to implement a living wage, how to reward good businesses, and how better to protect workers in the future, rather than merely defending the past.

Now, with just a few days left before our ballot papers arrive next week, I am asking for your first preference vote so that together we can make that change and win again for Labour.

Between 1997 and 2010, we lost five million votes. Our progressive majority fractured over time because we became technocrats of the state, and we lost touch with people’s lives. We lost 1.7 million middle class voters, two thirds to the Lib Dems. I am the candidate who can win those voters back for Labour — by placing liberty, equality and aspiration at the heart of our party’s mission.

But what many in this leadership election choose to ignore is that Labour has lost too much support amongst people on lower incomes, and those struggling to get by. During our time in office, over 3 million working-class people abandoned New Labour as they felt New Labour abandoned them. The result was that our traditional “core vote” became the new “swing vote”. Many people chose to vote Tory; too many others simply stayed home.

So we must have the courage to change, and to reshape the centre-ground again. We must reach out to those who have turned away from Labour since 1997. We must use this once in a generation realignment in British politics to draw new support from all those people across Britain who believe in fairness, hard work and opportunity. We must build an economy that works for people, create a more equal society with the space for everyone to flourish and forge a more accountable and more democratic state that works for everybody.

To do that, we need to escape the New Labour comfort zone. We must not go into the next election still as the party that defends the Iraq war or that says tuition fees and ID cards are here to stay. We cannot continue with the mantra that public is bad and private is good. We cannot fight the Tories arguing that low-wage, low-skill jobs are good enough or that we don’t need to radically overhaul our banking sector.

To win back the five million voters we lost and to build a new progressive coalition for our century, Labour must change.

I’m campaigning to make that change: for a foreign policy based on our values; for a fairer system of funding for Higher Education; for a living wage; for rights at work; for a high pay commission; and for more active support for British industry. I’m offering change on how we campaign, so that every party member and every trade union member has a voice in our movement. And I’m offering change on style, pledging to put an end to the factionalism of the New Labour years and to unite our party for good.

Those are the values I’ve fought for in this leadership election. We’ve always said that while we may be out-spent in this election, we would not be out organised. And so it has been — as our new video shows, over 4,000 people have signed up to volunteer to be part of the change and over 700 have given small donations to help drive our campaign. The result is that we are now neck and neck in the final days of this contest.

You can be part of the change we need to win again. Please click on the link below, watch our latest video and pledge to give me your first preference vote:

http://action.edmiliband.org/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=3904

This is a defining leadership election — together, we can be the change we need to win again.

Thank you,

Ed Miliband
DonateTo unsubscribe, please click here. Privacy: we won’t pass on your email address to anyone else. See http://www.labour.org.uk/privacy Reproduced from an email sent by the Labour Party, promoted by Ray Collins, General Secretary, the Labour Party, on behalf of the Labour Party, all at 39 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0HA. This email has been sent by the Labour Party to all members on behalf of the above Leadership candidate, in agreement with the National Executive Committee and in accordance with the Procedural Guidelines.
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Time for a Bennite Revolt?

I should admit right at the outset that I have a bit of a rose-tinted view of Tony Benn. My views on the great man have been flavoured less on the 80s firebrand and more on elder statesman, diarist
and conscience of the party. After retiring as MP so as to concentrate more time to politics, he is now leading a call for “ordinary people” to revolt against “the most savage spending cuts since the 1930′s. It is easy to dismiss Tony Benn as a figure of a bygone era, a rabid left-wing politician that has no place in the post-ideological political age. But that is to do him, and his campaign, a huge disservice.

The proposed spending cuts have the potential to destroy livelihoods. Although the coalition remain steadfast that “we are all in this together” the reality will be very different. Increases in VAT, an £11billion cut in the welfare budget and 25% reductions across government departments will all hit the most vulnerable the hardest. It is not millionaire business leaders or bankers that will feel the pain but single mothers, the disabled and their carers. And it is not just service users that will be affected. Internal Treasury documents estimate 1.3million public and private sector job losses over the course of this parliament, all piling more pressure onto whatever services remain.

Policies that have such a negative impact on so many people’s lives must be resisted. Organising communities, holding public meetings and taking to the streets should be embraced by the left, with local Labour parties sitting at the heart of these protests. But protest alone is not enough, if you believe the coalition government, and huge swathes of the media, there is simply no alternative to cuts. The responsibility of all those vying for the Labour leadership is to prove this statement untrue by articulating a viable alternative.

We cannot allow ourselves to get into a situation where as a party we accept the premise of cuts but then argue against them on a one-by-one basis. It does not sound credible and will just further shrink the publics trust in politicians, with Labour as the principal leader. Instead we need to deliver a positive message for change – an alternative and fairer way of doing business. For me Ed Miliband is currently the one best articulating this. Slower deficit reduction, more onus on progressive taxation and support for small business are all key platforms of an alternative economic plan and these, along with a campaign for the living wage, are the central themes of Ed’s campaign. I urge you all to support him.

In the meantime however rather than looking inwards, local Labour parties need to be taking the fight to the government – this means getting on-board the ‘Bennite Revolt’. Whilst our potential leaders slug it out, we need to organise within our communities and deliver our future leader (whoever that maybe) a vibrant grassroots movement willing to fight for an alternative to the vile campaign of cuts being proposed by this government.

Tory plans keep me awake at night – but where is the opposition?

So here I am sitting on a train that is currently winding it’s way to London from Glasgow. I should really be catching up on sleep but every time I start to doze an uncomfortable thought jolts me back to reality. The thought? That the Tories are in complete control of the political agenda, they are already drawing up the battle lines for the next election and by the time the other parties wake up to the threat it may be too late.

The dominant Conservative element of this coalition government are determined to learn from the mistakes of the 1997 Labour Government. Not for them a timid first term, patiently fighting one battle at a time whilst all the while keeping one eye on the polls and focus groups. We are witnessing an object lesson in the exploitation of power by a party that sees the last 13years as an aberration, a temporary lapse in the electorates collective judgement.

Crippling cuts in public expenditure, the effective decoupling of education from LEA’s, the largest overhaul of health provision since the inception of the NHS. Promises of prison reform and welfare reform, not to mention a proposal to significantly reduce the size of the House of Commons and of course a referendum on AV. All this, and it is only August. Once Parliament returns from the summer recess it is time for the spending review and that is when the real fun begins. Don’t let yourself fall for DC’s easy charm – this government is working with an ideological zealotry that Thatcher would be in awe of. Under the cover of ‘necessary cuts’ we are about to witness a dramatic and permanent cut in the size of the state, with those on the margins of society hit the hardest.

And what of the other parties? Nick Clegg and his band of Lib-Dems have gambled all on an AV referendum, ceding all power and voice in an attempt to make progress on their most treasured policy. I fear for a party that now has no identity beyond the coalition itself and could suffer a catastrophic demise at the next election. Regardless, they are in no position to do anything but offer tacit support to the Tories for now. As for Labour, could there really be a worse time for a long drawn out leadership battle that is struggling to maintain interest from it’s own membership let alone from the wider electorate? What we need are Labour’s biggest and best minds working together to build public campaigns, raise the level of debate and hold this un-mandated government to account.

The Tories and their agenda have stolen a march and currently there is no one to stop them. That thought alone is enough to keep me from sleeping.

Labour Leadership – State of the Race and who I am supporting

And well they should be smiling. With formal nominations now closed the race for the leadership is becoming very much a sibling affair. So here are the scores on the doors and an explanation of what happens next.

Diane Abbot – 33 MPs, 2 Trade Unions (ASLEF, TSSA), 2 Socialist Societies and 20 Constituency Parties.

Ed Balls – 33MPs, 1 Trade Union (CWU), 2 Socialist Societies and 17 Constituency Parties

Andy Burnham – 33MPs, 0 Trade Unions, 1 Socialist Society and 44 Constituency Parties

David Miliband – 81MPs, 2 Trade Unions (Community, USDAW), 1 Socialist Society, 165 Constituency Parties

Ed Miliband – 63MPs, 6 Trade Unions (GMB, Unite, Unison, NUM, UCATT, Unity), 3 Socialist Societies,  151 Constituency Parties

In short David has a lead amongst MPs and Constituencies but Ed has a significant advantage within the Union section, not just in numbers but also in scale with the big 3 all supporting him. So, what does this mean? In a sense, nothing. The nominations only indicate support for a leader. The days of block votes are long gone and each individual member has the opportunity to vote for their personal preference. Having said that, momentum is everything and it is clear that ‘the Mo’ is with the Miliband brothers.

For those of you who are not Labour party geeks here is a bit of guidance of what will happen next. Rather than a straight, simple election the Labour Party has a slightly more complex ‘Electoral College’ with MPs, Trade Unions and affiliated societies and the Labour party membership each getting a third of the votes. The idea behind this is to equalise power across the different sections of the party, ensuring no-one holds too much sway but that everyone is fully represented. In a peculiar twist it also means that some people will actually get 3 votes – for instance if you are an MP who is also an individual member and a member of a trade union.Ballot papers will land from the 1st September, with the result announced at conference on the 25th September.The vote itself is known as a transferable eliminating ballot (not so different to the Alternative Vote system that we will all get a chance to vote on sometime next year). This means that, if no-one can claim 50%+1 of all votes cast in the first round, whoever comes bottom of the poll will be eliminated and their 2nd preference votes added to the original totals – this will continue until there is an outright winner. Simple :)

As for who I am backing? Well it is going to be Ed. He is running a positive, issues based campaign that really resonates with me. As importantly, he of all candidates, grasps the importance of organising to win. Labour as a party has forgotten how to build a grass-roots movement through energetic, timely local campaigns. Ed’s team seem to be building exactly this kind of movement in their bid for the leadership and it great to see. If you want to see more of what I am talking about visit his website here.

Come back soon for more updates on the campaign.

The Scores on the Doors – I want a Miliband, but which to choose?

Oh you poor things – first you have to hear me go through the emotional turmoil of turning my back on a Labour party that felt bereft of leadership, ideas and any passion or instinct to govern. Then you suffer through me returning to the fold after realising that whilst love can sometimes be messy, undignified and downright painful; it is after all love and therefore more hard-wearing and longstanding than I had previously thought. Now you have to witness the trials and tribulations as I decide which of the leadership candidates to plump for. Bear with me – I will try and make it at least a little entertaining and informative for you all.

So, with only a couple of months to go, where am I? Let’s go through them one-by-one, in ascending order.

5. Ed Balls – The old school scrapper. To be fair to him he is the one that has really stepped up and taken the fight to the Tories. His performances against Gove have been legendary – two stereotypes of their parties going toe to toe. He has also been effective, forcing the new coalition government on to the back foot early on and then keeping them there. Yet, having an attack-dog in your back-garden is one thing, giving him the keys to the house is quite another. Can you really imagine him as leader of the party, let alone the country? No? Me neither. Going on the attack is all well and good, but some of his policy announcements have looked distinctly like someone following the crowd rather than leading it and I have yet to hear anything of an over-arching vision. And, if we are honest, he is never going to shift public opinion away from the fact that he is an arch-briefer that represents the very worst of the Brown administration. The campaign looks in trouble – and you can see why.

4. Andy Burnham – Until last weeks brilliant performance on Question Time I had almost forgotten that he was standing. And that says it all really. He comes across as a decent guy, with some good ideas. But, unless he is there standing in front of you it is too easy to forget about him and that is probably the most damning indictment of any potential leader. Having said that, when the debate moved to the NHS on Question Time last week he was immense – articulate, knowledgable but most of all passionate – he now needs to inject this passion into the rest of his campaign if he wants to move from affable boy next door to most-powerful man in Britain. I am not convinced he can, but he is the one with the most to gain from the long election period, so we will have to wait and see.

3. Diane Abbott - Every time I hear her, read about her and watch her on TV I am reminded of why I first joined the Labour party. She is passionate, articulate and principled. Her politics are shaped not in focus groups but through her life experiences, and she is all the better for it. But politics isn’t just about idealistic rhetoric – for without power we are little more than an irrelevance. And there comes the problem – whilst Diane Abbott keeps the rest of them honest, there are no votes in her winning the leadership – the public will never go for a product of the left of the party. And therefore, alas, neither can we.

And this is where it becomes tough – for whilst I know who I will not be voting for, I am yet to decide who I will. So here are the last two, in no order of preference.

David Miliband – If you had asked me 3years ago who I wanted to lead the party then I would have responded instantly with the words ‘David Miliband’. One of the brightest of his generation, he is a genuine intellectual powerhouse and is steeped in the traditions of the party. But can he lead them now? For name recognition alone, if an election was called tomorrow then he would have to be the one best placed to take on the coalition. He is, of all, the most ‘Prime Ministerial’. But that comes at a price – he doesn’t look comfortable talking to the average person and he doesn’t create any sense of ‘he is one of us’. He is also very much the continuity candidate – he wrote the 1997, 2001, 2005 manifestos and was Foreign Secretary at the time of the 2010 election – how many more new ideas does he have and can he really create a step-change with the past? Having said that, he is the one to beat. He is well financed, well organised and anyone who read or saw the Kier Hardie speech must at least pause for thought before voting for anyone else. He has also been hugely impressive on the less fashionable but most important issue of how to organise for victory – delivering successful local campaigns and developing a new generation of activists. Yet despite this I find myself strangely unenthused – his task over the next few months is excite me and people like me.

Ed Miliband – And finally, Ed Miliband. He too is bright, articulate, steeped in the traditions of the party, but also approachable – as if Westminster hasn’t quite tainted him yet. The outsider on the inside if you like. There is no doubt that he has a strong vision for the party and his views on Electoral Reform, Immigration, The Iraq War and the deficit all chime with mine. (I disagree with him on Trident, but you can’t have everything!). He is also doing great work connecting with young people whose natural home should be Labour and developing a grassroots campaign of the kind we will need to fight the Tories at the next election. So, why the doubt? It can be summed up in one question – Can he lead this party at this time? If between the next couple of months he can convince me of that then he has my vote (or votes actually… I think I get a couple!).

So there you go – that is where I am at the moment… erring towards Ed M, but still undecided between him and his brother. I’ll try to keep blogging regularly as I make up my mind. It would be great to get your feedback and who you are supporting and why.
Talk soon,

Bx