Business, Innovation and Skills
Adrian Bailey (c), Luciana Berger, Jack Dromey, Chi Onwurah, Rachel Reeves
Children, Schools and Families
Nic Dakin, Pat Glass, Liz Kendall, Ian Mearns, Lisa Nandy
Communities and Local Government
Clive Betts (c), Heidi Alexander, Clive Efford, Toby Perkins, Chris Williamson
Culture Media and Sport
David Cairns, Paul Farrelly, Alan Keen, Jim Sheridan, Tom Watson (more…)
The response to Ken Clarke’s recent speech has been bemusement all round, and no doubt the old stager likes it that way.
The right has always argued for locking more people up, led by the tabloids and urged on by David Cameron and others during the campaign. How pathetic that Labour only added 20,000 prison places in 13 years. How disgraceful that we were letting some prisoners out early because of overcrowding. Why not use prison ships? Army camps? Offshore islands?
Meanwhile, the left has long been uncomfortable with Labour’s record on this. How disgusting that we were pandering to the Daily Mail. How appalling that we had the highest imprisonment rate in Europe. Why weren’t we rehabilitating prisoners instead of having them fester in jails? (more…)
#hustings
David Miliband in action at the Cardiff hustings
Pity the Labour leadership contenders. They have made themselves hoarse on the hustings, but there are still three sweaty months to go. Yet they know they can only be a sideshow at this stage in the post-election cycle, when all eyes are on the coalition. It may be some consolation to the contenders to know they are doing their party some good as recruiting officers. At least 25,000 new members have joined up since Labour’s election defeat, a mixture of returners and disaffected Lib Dems. When ballot papers go out to MPs, trade union supporters and activists on 1 September, newcomers’ votes may have a disproportionate influence. – The Guardian
A common theme was the need to acknowledge that the last Labour Government had not only stopped listening to the public but had stopped listening to the Labour Party’s own members. Ed Miliband in a powerful moment declared that, “I do believe our society is too unequal. The gap between the rich and poor is too wide. That’s why I’m campaigning for a living wage, not just a minimum wage and for action on high pay.” This won the vigorously approval of Lord and Lady Kinnock who sat in the front row keen to champion their chosen candidate. – Western Mail
If ever there was a moment for Labour’s rebirth, this is it. The C2 voters who walked away will bear the brunt of Conservative thrift, the once-Blairite middle classes are contemplating the scrapheap, and Lib Dem supporters are appalled that Nick Clegg has become the Trojan horse for Tory cuts. Yet in the greatest crisis to engulf Britain since the war, Labour seems oddly absent. The people’s party has become a travelling circus in which the five leadership candidates perform at endless hustings and get reacquainted with an electorate that told them to take a running jump. – The Telegraph
Ed Miliband has cool-blitzed his brother’s desert island discs. It may be that he is cooler. It may be that he took a lot longer to reflect; that he agonised and focus-grouped.
Whatever the explanation, David’s desert island discs were defiantly uncool. Ed’s is a clever selection of thirty something and socialist hat tips.
We speculated in advance on how the candidates would deal with the Billy Bragg dilemma: too obvious, or impossible to omit if you want to resonate with any Labour member under 50? (more…)
Labour Uncut is interviewing David Miliband about his leadership bid.
What should we ask him? What would your vote depend on? Here’s a chance to have your say.
Add your questions to this thread as a comment, by 12 noon on Sunday 11 July.
As a principle, asking people what they think is a good thing, but ask them in the wrong way and all you’re doing is storing up resentment. It looks like Nick Clegg’s Your Freedom is piling up the anger.
If you’ve ever been on TV or radio and the producer has developed an interest in your breakfasting habits as you’re sitting down, it’s because just asking people ‘to say something’ doesn’t work — they mumble, go quiet, and generally say nothing of even enough use to check that the sound levels are right.
So it is with consultation. Ask too tight, or loaded, a question and you do nothing but make people angry, but make the question too wide and you’re going to have a hell of a job finding anything useful. (more…)
Cuts
The Labour party and the unions seized on the 40 per cent figure as proof the Tory-Liberal coalition was about to wage an ideologically-driven war on the public sector. Ed Balls, the Labour leadership contender, said: “These reports will send a chill down the spines of millions of public sector workers and millions of people who rely on our vital public services.” And RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: “With cuts of up to 40 per cent in the transport budget we are looking at thousands of job losses amongst the staff who operate and maintain services with dire consequences for passenger safety.” – City AM
Shadow education secretary Ed Balls said the first blow of the axe could fall as early as today with the review of the government’s building schools for the future programme. He claimed rebuilding projects at 750 schools, approved under the former Labour government, were set to be cancelled. Mr Balls, a contender for the Labour leadership, described the government plans for tackling the deficit as “economically unwise and socially deeply, deeply unfair”. “We know from the 1980s and from the 1930s, when we had the Great Depression, that if you try to cut spending and public services really hard and assume that the private sector is going to come along and create lots of new jobs, it doesn’t work out that way,” he said. – Irish Times
A great man, supporting a great cause, should not be open to ridicule. Sorry John we just couldn’t resist.
Captions please.
Another busy week for June. The leadership candidates have been racing up and down the country securing endorsements and nominations, consoling England players, cheering on Murray and offering up policy positions on pretty much everything.
In case you missed them, here are half a dozen of Uncut’s better-read pieces of the last week:
Kate Williams gets suckered into facing Nick and Dave
Painter offers his 10 lessons for Labour from England’s hopeless World Cup
Tom Copley wakes up agreeing with Ken Clarke and doesn’t like it
Rachel Reeves argues that we need a growth plan, not regional economic vandalism
Dan Hodges fires off a blistering assault on the new pluralism
Furber gives the candidates and their web campaigns what for
Electoral reform
“Labour needs a thorough debate about voting reform now that the referendum moment is announced. It would be a mistake for leadership candidates to nail themselves to an alternative vote (AV) or a first-past-the-post (FPTP) mast. AV was spatchcocked into Labour’s manifesto in a desperate last-minute bid to paint some radical hues on to the good ship Gordon Brown. But voters, not unreasonably, asked why it took 13 years for Labour to discover the most timid of all voting reform systems.” – Denis MacShane, The Guardian
“But regardless of what happens on 5 May 2011, it’s clear that one group is already benefitting from the prospect of a referendum: the Labour leadership contenders. Until now, they’ve been distinguished by their indistinguishability on policy grounds. But, now, their different positions on AV have gifted the Labour faithful something, however small, to choose between. David and Ed Miliband have said that they would campaign for a yes vote; Diane Abbot says she would like to see it implemented; Andy Burnham is vigorously opposing it; and Ed Balls has pitched himself somewhere in the middle. It’s one of the clearest, most wide-ranging distinctions we’ve seen so far.” – The Spectator
David and Iraq
“I suspect that David Miliband, who – unlike the two Eds – had a vote in 2003, still agonises over Iraq. Nor, with the Chilcot inquiry reconvened, and the war raised at every hustings and meeting, can it easily be consigned to history. “I’ve done Chilcot. I’ve said if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have [backed] it.” Is he saying the war should never have been fought? “The way I put it is that if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn’t have been a war. I’ve set out that if we knew there were no WMD, there would have been no UN resolutions and no war.”” – The Telegraph
