July « 2010 « Labour Uncut

Archive for July, 2010

We must stand together to tackle this referendum, says Samuel Dale

14/07/2010, 03:30:31 PM

The referendum on whether to adopt the alternative vote (AV) system for House of Commons is taking place on May 5 2011. It is an important moment in British politics, which will see two coalition partners pitted against each other. It may be easy to think Labour will therefore have a limited role. Actually, the party has to face some tough decisions on its strategy and policy but must avoid being a bit part player in what will be a pivotal moment.

The first, and most important, question is whether electoral reform, however incremental, is the progressive and fair course of action. By allowing second preferences the alternative vote system will stop the scandal of wasted votes endured under the first past the post system. This means that in a Conservative and Liberal Democrat marginal seat one could still make clear one’s support for Labour but vote Lib Dem second to keep the Tories out and vice versa. This seems progressive – an advance for electoral fairness and an enfranchisement of those in safe seats who wish to make their true choice but not hand the seat to a party they want to keep out.

(more…)

Posted in Grassroots | 5 Comments »

The greatest trick the devil ever played

14/07/2010, 01:34:31 PM

Looks like Michael Ashcroft’s cash hasn’t reached Walsall. The re-run of the Bloxwich West by-election will take place tomorrow, and the poor cash-strapped Tory candidate has had to re-use her leaflets from May 6. Good for her you might say, saving on paper, and after all the only thing that needed to be changed on the front page was the date.

But it’s not just the council candidate who is cash strapped. After Michael Gove took his knife to the Building Schools for the Future programme Walsall schools are cash-strapped too. Luckily for the council candidate you can gloss over the loss of £200million schools investment you were previously claiming credit for, that you’re government has just pulled, with some subtle editing. Click on the picture below to see the Tories make that investment disappear. Now that’s magic.

Posted in Grassroots | 2 Comments »

The man we loved to blame – Dan Hodges defends Peter Mandelson

14/07/2010, 10:11:12 AM

Soon after England’s penalty loss to Germany in Euro ’96, (remember the days when we could still take people to penalties), a pizza advert appeared featuring Stuart Pearce, Chris Waddle and Gareth Southgate. Waddle and Pearce, who had missed similar penalty attempts during the 1990 World Cup, were seen coaching Southgate in how to come to terms with his own career-defining failure. The advert rebound as spectacularly as the Aston Villa defender’s spot kick, with many criticising his tasteless attempt to cash in during a period of national trauma.

Gareth Southgate and Peter Mandelson are not two men who naturally meld in the consciousness. But as I watched Peter advertising his new memoirs whilst reclining in a deep leather chair, affecting the air of a Victorian gentleman successfully acquitted of poisoning his wealthy wife, meld they did. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 6 Comments »

Wednesday News Review

14/07/2010, 07:35:34 AM

Ed M woos the press

Ed Miliband impressed at press lunch

I have been listening to Labour leadership challenger Ed Miliband wooing a notoriously sceptical audience, members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. And I’m wondering: Is he Labour’s David Cameron? Having observed him giving several impressive party conference speeches in recent years, I’ve noted before that his style is similar: shirt sleeves, no jacket, strolling around the podium, speaking without notes. But now, as Ed Miliband enters the crucial summer period in the Labour leadership contest against his four rivals, he appears to be adopting another Cameron tactic, dumping large parts of party policy. – Sky

Ed Miliband has just emerged from a lunch talk in front of dozens of journalists in the — for a politician — not un-intimidating surroundings of the press gallery restaurant in the House of Commons. Miliband appeared to impress most present with a speech laced with jokes in the first half. One of the most notable of these was when he said that he didn’t need to brief journalists while he was working for Gordon Brown because he “shared an office with the forces of hell”, in a reference to Alistair Darling’s comments about hard-core Brownites who briefed against him in recent years. – The New Statesman

Speaking at a Press Gallery lunch, Mr Miliband said: “I do not begrudge him at all the chance to offer his reflections, because I think he served the party extremely loyally. “What is absolutely clear is that we need to move on as a political party from the culture, methods and ways of that New Labour establishment.” Saying that Lord Mandelson’s book should “close a chapter,” he added: “I believe I am the candidate who can move Labour on.” – The Telegraph

(more…)

Posted in Unbound | No Comments »

Pat McFadden says Labour should be confident about its record in Government

13/07/2010, 08:39:58 PM

Ahead of his keynote speech to the Fabian Society tomorrow, Shadow Business Secretary Pat McFadden MP sets out his stall:

Two months after the election we can see the shape of the political and economic debate in the times to come.

The Government has set out a narrative which seeks to pin all the blame on Labour and absolve themselves of responsibility for their decisions.

But in the end, these issues are a matter of choice and judgement. We made our choices. Now they are making theirs.

Labour’s response should be confident about our record in Government and clear that we would have handled the deficit in a very different and more just way than the coalition Government. But it should also acknowledge that if we had won, there would have been difficult decisions to come.

Our debate about the future should focus on the kind of economy we want and the jobs and opportunities it can bring to people.

Labour has a strong agenda on these issues. The Tories and Lib Dems talk about what they are against on industry policy but say little about what they are for.

Pat McFadden is the MP for Wolverhampton South East and the Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.

The full speech is available here.

Posted in Home | 1 Comment »

Crowdsourcing the leadership

13/07/2010, 01:25:39 PM

This morning we published the latest in our series of crowdsourced interviews with the Labour leadership candidates. This time it was David Miliband’s turn to be interviewed.

You can read the David Miliband interview here, and in case you missed them here are our earlier interviews with Diane Abbott and Ed Balls. Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham are still to face the Uncut crowdsourcing hotseat.

Posted in Home | No Comments »

The David Miliband interview

13/07/2010, 10:37:34 AM

David Miliband: no zombie

Step up David Miliband, the third leadership contender to join us in the Labour Uncut crowdsourcing hotseat. He was bouncy and inquisitive, he had a firm handshake and a busy office. He even let us take his picture, unlike Diane Abbott who only uses ‘approved photography’.

He’s for votes at 16, feels a personal loss at the ‘vandalism’ of BSF, but he’s definitely not a zombie. In fact, he’s very anti-zombie.

Q. (from Luke Spencer) How do you think we can get back the supporters we lost in the election so we can succeed in wining the election in 2015?

A. Well I think we lost because we didn’t relefct people’s aspirations and hopes and second because we didn’t have a clear plan for the future. The way to get it back is to be on people’s side and get a clear plan for the future. We won three elections because people thought we’d make them better off and make their communities safer, improve their schools and hospitals, or their health and education services. And that must be the recipe for the next election if it’s in 2015, or even sooner. I think that involves changing the way we do politics, because that’s an important part of reaching out, but also because it will help us develop the ideas that actually speak to people’s lives as they are today or tomorrow as opposed to what they were ten or fifteen years ago.

Q. (from Joseph Casey) Ken Clarke said last week that in the past politicians have talked tough on crime without taking the tough decisions. Although dominating the headlines and stimulating much debate, I heard no comment on the issue from any of the Labour leadership contenders. What approach do you think is the most effective route to offender rehabilitation, which ultimately creates fewer victims and less crime?

A. We’ve been asked about this quite a lot at the hustings that we’re having. Remember, crime was reduced by 35-40% under Labour. We’re the first government since 1945 to leave office with crime lower than when we arrived. And on reoffending we cut reoffending rates by 20% overall, 24% for young people…but we’ve got to do more, and better, next time. I think that Ken Clarke is having to come into this with his hands tied because he’s got no investment to make rehabilitation work. I would support as he called it the ‘rehabilitation revolution’. The more you can rehabilitate people, the better. And we’ve got to make prison work better. It’s not a case of does prison work or doesn’t prison work. It’s a question of what’s the best way of keeping crime down, because the best test of a penal system is the amount of crime not the number of people in prison. And I think that we can do that in a number of ways. I think that restorative justice is important, where people pay back to their victims. I think we’ve got to make community punishment mean something, because too many people think it’s a soft option. And we started to do that, but we’d have to go further.

(more…)

Posted in Inside | 4 Comments »

Tell the truth and trust the members, says Staynton Brown

13/07/2010, 10:08:26 AM

Across Europe, we are seeing the loss of influence of progressive, social democratic parties. It is time for Labour to be at the forefront of restating the values that re-engages those of us on the left.

This requires more soul searching and honesty than at any time in recent memory. No longer should Labour party members act solely as fundraisers and canvassers. The collective ideas, skills, experience and knowledge of members must be more readily tapped into.

We are no longer a party of government, so the process of renewal and reaffirmation of values needs to involve all party members in a way not seen over the past 15 years.? ?Honesty requires the leadership to be more transparent and committed to revisiting some of the conventional wisdom that leads people to say that there is not much to choose between the Conservatives and Labour. (more…)

Posted in Grassroots | 2 Comments »

Tuesday News Review

13/07/2010, 07:50:57 AM

The gift that keeps on giving

"Futile"

The leaders of Labour‘s general election campaign believed their party was “fucked” six months before Gordon Brown fired the starting gun in April, Lord Mandelson has revealed. In the latest instalment of his memoirs, the former business secretary says that three senior members of the cabinet joked last October that Labour should fight a campaign based on three Fs: Futile, Finished, and Fucked. – The Guardian

The peer criticised the “unbridled contempt” of some of Mr Brown’s allies – taken as a reference to Mr Whelan and Ed Balls – for Mr Blair. Mr Balls, now a candidate for the party leadership, said yesterday it was incorrect to say he had briefed against fellow Labour MPs over the past decade. In a BBC interview he said: “Are there times when I was in my late 20s, 15 years ago, where… we were sort of youthful and exuberant and a bit arrogant? Almost certainly the case, but we all grew up.” – The Western Mail

"Finished"

Clearly annoyed by Lord Mandelson’s actions, leadership candidate Ed Miliband, who served in cabinet with him, said: “One of the lessons for Labour is we do need to move on from some of the psychodramas of the past, some of the factionalism that there was.” The most important lesson to be learnt from the memoirs, said Mr Miliband, was that the party would be “profoundly wrong” to believe that it lost the election because of its most senior personalities, rather than its policies. “We began as the party of the windfall tax on privatised utilities and the minimum wage in 1997. We ended up – despite doing great things – as the party defending bankers’ bonuses and pushing forward ID cards,” said Mr Miliband. – The Irish Times

"Fucked"

A senior Labour politician has launched a scathing attack on Lord Mandelson, saying the former Cabinet minister should compensate the party for the damage his memoirs are likely to cause. Ian Davidson, the new chairman of the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, said Mandelson should donate the proceeds from his explosive tell-all memoirs to the party. The MP also said that the television advertisements for the book, in which the former Business Secretary wears a smoking jacket and a cravat, proved he had always been egotistical and self-serving. – The Herald

(more…)

Posted in Unbound | 1 Comment »

McFall leads charge to provide trusted bank

12/07/2010, 04:11:51 PM

The Labour peer, John McFall, prior to the election a redoubtable chair of the treasury select committee, is to be a director in a new banking venture that will compete to buy government-backed assets such as Northern Rock and a portfolio of branches of Lloyds Banking Group.

Sir David Walker, who last year published a report on corporate governance, and Charlie McCreevy, the former European Union internal markets commissioner, will join McFall as directors. Lord Levene, a crossbencher and outgoing chairman of the Lloyd’s of London insurance market, will serve as chairman to the new venture.

(more…)

Posted in Inside | 1 Comment »