Ed Miliband « Labour Uncut

Posts Tagged ‘Ed Miliband’

Monday News Review

23/08/2010, 08:08:27 AM

Burnham battles party ‘elite’

“Andy Burnham today launches a scathing attack on the “self-serving elite” running Labour, pitching himself as the “anti-establishment” candidate in the battle for the Labour leadership. He spells out detailed plans for rebuilding the party as the struggle to replace Gordon Brown resumes after a two-week lull in hostilities.” – The Independent

“The shadow health secretary said it would be dangerous for the party if the winner was from the “Londoncentric establishment”. Mr Burnham, who comes from a working class home, believes only someone from a different background could take on David Cameron. His comments will be seen as an attack on leadership favourites David and Ed Miliband, the sons of an academic who grew up in a middle class house.” – The Mirror

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Saturday News Review

21/08/2010, 09:29:17 AM

Kennedy talks step up

“Labour stepped up its attack on the Liberal Democrat wing of David Cameron’s coalition government by hinting Charles Kennedy, the former Lib Dem leader, has been in talks to defect to Labour and take several of his party colleagues with him.”– The Guardian

The fight down under

“Australians go to the polls tonight in what is predicted to be one of the closest battles in decades and offering a stark choice between two very different leaders.” – Wales Online

“The World Cup had Paul the “psychic octopus”. The Australian election – the closest in years – has Harry, the Australian saltwater crocodile with supposed predictive powers. Like Paul, Harry correctly picked Spain to win the World Cup last month. Now Harry has forecast a win for Julia Gillard in tomorrow’s vote.” – The Guardian

Posting the union vote

“Labour leadership candidate Ed Balls is to visit a number of post offices in the coming week, pledging his support to keeping the Royal Mail publicly owned. The shadow education secretary will launch his support in Glasgow on Saturday, followed by Durham on Sunday, Burnley on Monday, Wolverhampton on Wednesday and other parts of the country later in the week.” – The Press Association

Barmy Burnham

“Andy Burnham has long been a staunch supporter of Top of the Pops, so when he was asked at a Labour leadership campaign event in Nottingham this week whether he still planned to lobby for the programme to be returned to the BBC, his answer was a foregone conclusion, according to today’s diary in the Independent.

But as well as praising the show, he went on to complain that the BBC was too “London-centric”, perhaps referring to the ongoing controversy over the reluctance of certain BBC bosses to relocate to new premises in Salford. According to Burnham, the Beeb has also lost touch with “ordinary people” — and he went on to rachet up the rhetoric, saying that “they’d never hire someone like John Peel now”.” – The New Statesman blog

How to host a party by David Miliband

“Under the headline “What you should be doing”, the document starts at 5:30pm: “Get in from work, give the place a quick vacuum and general tidy (or not, if you’re not that type).” In case the idea hadn’t occurred, hosts are told to “prepare food and drink… no one can resist a delicious spread of food!”…” – Sify.com

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Friday News Review

20/08/2010, 08:07:26 AM

The campaign crosses the border

“The Shadow Energy Secretary, who today begins a three-day tour of Scotland with a visit to Govan shipyard, is said by his camp to have secured most first-preference votes among Labour MSPs and is doing “particularly well” on second preferences among Scottish Labour MPs. A source close to Ed Miliband told The Herald: “We are not taking anything for granted but are encouraged by the response among Scottish parliamentarians. We’re confident that, by the time people vote, Ed will have majority support in Scotland.” – The Herald Scotland

“Ed Balls explaining why he thought he was not doing as well as his opponents north of the Border: “It’s partly having had an English portfolio. It’s partly through people thinking to themselves we need to move beyond Gordon Brown and I started off as being the person three months ago who was closest to him.” – The Herald Scotland

The Philip Green agenda

“Sir Philip has been hired to advise on Whitehall efficiency. His wife Tina is a Monaco resident and as owner of Arcadia received a £1.2bn dividend in 2005 on which UK tax did not have to be paid. Alastair Campbell, the former Downing Street spin doctor, said the deficit would already be smaller if billionaires paid the same amount of tax as everyone else.” – The FT

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Tuesday News Review

17/08/2010, 07:56:53 AM

Goodbye Alan, it’s been emotional

I, for one, am fed up with the media myth which suggests that the Blairites were the cool dudes in the dull Labour gang, that they were popular and/or adored, and that they singlehandedly won general elections for the party. Did anyone ever say to themselves, “I’m voting Labour because of Alan Milburn”? Did people take to the street in protests when Blunkett was sacked from the cabinet? Did the likes of Patricia Hewitt, Geoff Hoon and Stephen Byers help or hinder the Labour re-election effort earlier this year, when they were outed by Channel 4’s Dispatches grubbing for cash? And did anyone really doubt that the ultra-Blairites like Milburn and Hutton were closer to the Tories, in their pro-market, pro-privatization, pro-rich ideology, than to the Labour Party, new or old? – The New Statesman

On Wednesday, he will deliver a speech on social mobility and confirm the disclosure in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph that Alan Milburn has been appointed an independent adviser to the Government. John Prescott‘s furious denunciation of Milburn as a “collaborator” tells you all you need to know about the political symbolism of this coup: the former Health Secretary and one-time Labour leadership contender joins his fellow Blairite, John Hutton, and Labour’s star thinker on welfare, Frank Field, in the coalition’s Big Tent. David Blunkett is reported to be next on the list of invitees. Just as Blair wooed senior Lib-Dems and One Nation Tories to New Labour — what Alastair Campbell called “Operation Hoover” — so Cameron and Clegg are recruiting disenfranchised Blairites. – The Evening Standard

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The week Uncut

08/08/2010, 12:24:29 PM

There’s been some mixed messages from the leadership race this week. Andy Burnham chose the FA Cup final boyhood dream over being next Labour prime minister in our crowdsourcing interview (before some cajoling from his press secretary changed his mind) and Ed Miliband got into a spot of bother, denying that he’d opt for a north-south divide on tax credits.

Demos polling ended poorly for Labour, with projections of weakness and division. And even in the heat of the summer recess, there’s the distant rumble of the AV storm on the horizon.

Here’s a brunch digest of some of our best-read pieces from the Uncut week past.

The American way – no we cant says Dan Hodges

Ed Miliband clears up confusion over tax credits

The Andy Burnham Interview

Why Cameron knows nothing and cares less about council house tenants

It’s time the leadership also-rans came clean about their second preferences, says Sion Simon

James Ruddick bids farewell to Nick Clegg

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Ed Miliband clears up confusion over tax credits

05/08/2010, 12:08:56 PM

On Tuesday we reported on the fallout coming from an Ed Miliband interview with the Northern Echo that took place last week. The article stated that:

During the interview, Mr Miliband controversially suggested that people in the South should receive higher tax credits than people in the North, to reflect the higher cost of living.

It also quoted Miliband as saying:

We can look at the level of tax credits, so they benefit people in the South who haven’t benefited from the minimum wage.

However Ed’s campaign has been quick to refute this. A campaign spokesman for Miliband Jnr told Uncut that:

This [story] is based on a misunderstanding by the Northern Echo. He did not say he was in favour of regional rates and indeed he isn’t.

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Trouble at Ed Mil

03/08/2010, 07:33:07 PM

Word reaches Uncut of trouble brewing for Ed Mil.

The young pretender made some unguarded comments to a regional newspaper last week about differential benefit levels for those in the North and the South. He told the Northern Echo that benefits should be raised in the South to offset the higher cost of living. Northern MPs are said to be, “concerned” – Parliamentary language for bouncing off the walls.

They fear he could be opening the door for the Conservatives to drive through a two-tier tax credit system aimed at placating jittery southern Lib Dems and uppity Shire Tories.

This may of course turn out to be a storm in an ale mug, or it could be the first ‘A’ list gaffe of the leadership campaign.

A bold plan for a Labour resurgence ‘dahn saaf’? Or evidence of young Edmond’s political immaturity? Watch this space.

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Tuesday News Review

03/08/2010, 08:18:55 AM

The David & Ed show

The next Labour leader is unlikely to be an Abbott, Balls or Burnham. Gordon Brown’s successor will be a Miliband. But I’m more interested in whether he will be Mr Sun or Mr Wind. Aesop captured the dilemma in a fable. If you want a man to take off his cloak, do you huff and puff and force him to give it up or do you cover him with warmth until he discards it freely? In Aesop, the sun scores a predictable victory. Politics isn’t so easy. Harriet Harman’s blasts at Nick Clegg’s alleged betrayal of left-wing voters has undoubtedly blown many Liberal Democrat voters towards Labour. In the long term, however, Mr Miliband (for surely it will be Ed or David) is more likely to prosper by offering flowers to Liberal Democrats than by throwing the vase at them. – The Spectator

He accepts that it looks “odd” for Ed to be running against him and appears to have separated his sibling into two distinct mental compartments: Ed the Brother and Ed the Rival. On the shelves of his office, it’s striking that there is no photo of Ed. This strangeness is reflected in the way the normal rules of politics are blurred by the family affair. Normally, the runner-up in a leadership race can expect to get the shadow chancellor’s post. But wouldn’t it just look weird in the modern age to have two brothers in these two posts? Mr Miliband is firm: “I can honestly say I’ve not started giving out jobs to anybody. It’s certainly presumptuous to start giving out jobs to people and I’m resisting all temptations to do that”. – The Evening Standard

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Hillary Benn on leadership, and his decision to back Ed Miliband

29/07/2010, 04:13:54 PM

For me, this election is about character, and that’s why I am backing Ed Miliband.

I can remember the moment when I decided that he was the person to lead us into the future. It was a speech he gave, without notes. He was fluent and thoughtful. He argued his case. But above all, he looked and sounded like a leader, and I was mightily impressed. Last Sunday, along with 300 other people at the leadership hustings in Leeds, I saw those same qualities on display again. And I was reminded that who wins this election really does matter.

Why?

Well, first, because we have to understand the past in order to get the future right. On Labour’s achievements in government, you only have to look at what’s now under threat to be reminded just how important they were. But we do have to face up to the fact that we lost. And the most important question is – why did we lose? Because we stopped listening. And until we start listening, we will not win again.

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Wednesday News Review

28/07/2010, 07:47:26 AM

Liberal dilemma

Nick Clegg struggles with his new found unpopularity

Having won the leadership from the statist Labour left, Mili the Younger would have no option but to strike a hard bargain with the defenders of spending cuts that may, should the recent economic growth be sustained, have come to look a touch draconian. The studiedly centrist David, a stalwart of the Blairite bunker when a permanent “progressive realignment” with the Lib Dems (“the project”) was all the rage, makes a far more natural and amenable partner. With him as Labour leader, Mr Clegg would be a happy self-auctioneer, confident of repeating May’s trick by using Mili the Elder to force Mr Cameron to pay a steeper price than he would wish. – The Independent

Labour is to vote against legislation paving the way for a referendum on reforming the voting system. The shadow cabinet decided to oppose the Government’s Bill because it also includes provisions for equalising the size of constituencies. The move sets the stage for a major test of the coalition, with Labour MPs lining up alongside rebel Tories in a bid to derail the proposals. The commitment to a referendum on switching to Alternative Vote was a key concession obtained by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg as part of his deal with David Cameron. – Press Association

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