Balls blames Brown
Ed Balls says he warned Gordon Brown over immigration
“The Labour leadership contest came to life today when Ed Balls launched his strongest attack yet on Gordon Brown, his mentor and patron, and demanded a rethink of the founding principles of the EU to curb immigration.” – The Guardian
“It is Mr Balls’s claim that he warned Mr Brown, his friend and boss for almost 20 years, that will attract much attention. Not least because he claimed that the incident in which Mr Brown called Gillian Duffy, a lifelong Labour supporter, “bigoted” was symptomatic of his refusal to engage with the issue.” – The Telegraph
“Ed Balls, the Labour leadership contender, criticised his political mentor yesterday when he accused Gordon Brown of blundering by ignoring the immigration issue before the general election.” – The Independent
“Meet Ed Balls, the candidate for Mrs Duffy. As the race for nominations closes, the Labour leadership candidates are beginning to focus on party members. With varying degrees of conviction, the contenders have identified immigration as the issue the party must address if it is to reconnect with those voters who spurned it.” – The Spectator
“Balls must have known all along that his party was getting this country into a dreadful mess. His pathetic half-admission of guilt would be more convincing if he weren’t trying to persuade the unions he is a fit person to be Labour leader.” – The Daily Express
The Candidates
“If I thought either Ed Miliband or Ed Balls or Andy Burnham or Diane Abbott or John McDonnell would be a better Leader of the Opposition or a better Prime Minister than I, then I would be running their campaigns. But I don’t, and that’s why I’m running my own campaign.” – David Miliband, The New Stateman Blog
“TONY’S Blair’s former press chief Alastair Campbell has said that Labour leadership hopeful Ed Miliband is not up to the job. He said Ed would only make Labour “feel okay about losing” unlike his older brother, the outgoing foreign secretary, who could get the party “into shape again”.” – The Scotsman
“The Labour leadership hopefuls are to go head-to-head in the first of the contest’s hustings. The six declared candidates will have the opportunity to appeal to delegates at the GMB’s annual conference on Monday afternoon before appearing before fellow MPs in Westminster in the evening.” – Press Association
Final push for nominations
Andy Burnham is confident he will reach 33 nominations
“Andy Burnham yesterday also brandished leftist credentials. He said that he would promote “more job security for workers in private and public sectors” as well as “promoting fairness in pay and aspiration.”” – The Times
“Candidates need 33 nominations to get on the ballot paper, but the former Health Secretary insisted he would be able to garner enough support. Mr Burnham told political editor Adam Boulton he would lay out his case for the leadership this week, promising “policy drawn from my life experiences”.” – Sky News
Tags: Andy Burnham, Balls, Brown, Burnham, Coalition, Cruddas, Ed, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, Future, Future of Labour, Guardian, immigration, Labour, Labour leadership, Labour Party, leadership
Watched various programmes about Margaret Thatcher and her time in Downing street over the weekend on BBC4. In one documentary they were interviewing people on the street about a forthcoming General election and asking them what the priority was for them. “Immigration” was the resounding reply….over 20 years ago.
Nothing has changed nor will it. There’s little any Government can do about It I think, the will simply isn’t there. I haven’t decided whether I personally think that’s a good thing or not. My main wonder about the UK mainland I’ve had on recent visits is just the sheer number of people just about everywhere. It just seems more and more like a concrete jungle than it was when I was growing up.
I find thsi whole discussion about immigration really quite disturbing and would argue that if epictrader and Ed Balls are correct that Labour is out of touch with the public, then we truly aren’t getting our message across. The reason wages are low, unemployment is high, the trade unions are weak and the recession has caused a huge increase in our national debt has nothing to do with immigration, asylum seekers, refugees or new arrivals to this country. The key determinant affecting the disparity between rich and poor in thsi country is, as it always has been, class and not ethnicity.
The fat cats in the Stock Exchange and teh banking community have a vested interest in making us believe that immigration causes wages to be low. But the real reason is because the bankers and the shareholders in British industry demand high dividends – until the Labour Party can push this message across to the electorate we can expect to see a working class backlash against ethnic minorities. The party has a moral obligation to combat this inherent racism wherever it occurs and NOT use it as a mechanism to secure votes in a Labour leadership contest.