Next week, we’ve got Andy Burnham answering your questions in the Labour Uncut crowdsourced interview.
You decide what we put to him, so what should we ask?
Add your questions to the comment thread below this post by 6pm on Sunday.
Posts Tagged ‘Labour’
Monday News Review
26/07/2010, 07:35:41 AMEd Balls: I’m a fighter
Ed Balls: Fighting to the end
Ed Balls confirmed today that he was “fighting to win” the Labour leadership contest, as his campaign suffered a major blow when he failed to secure the backing of the Unite union. The decision by the political committee of Unite to back Ed Miliband means the shadow climate change secretary enters the summer recess with the backing of Britain’s three largest trade unions. Unison and the GMB have also endorsed Miliband. – The Guardian
Ed Balls has rejected speculation that he is considering quitting the Labour leadership contest. The shadow education secretary told the BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend he was “fighting to the end and I’m fighting to win”. Speculation about his leadership bid came after he failed to win the backing of the Unite union, which gave its endorsement to Ed Miliband. – The BBC
The former schools secretary was forced to re-state his commitment to the contest after reports suggested he was stepping aside in the wake of his failure to secure the backing of Unite union. Mr Balls was overlooked by the union in favour of Ed Miliband, who has now secured the endorsement of three out of the four major UK trade unions after Unison and the GMB also pledged their support. Mr Balls was believed to be considering his candidacy, but came out fighting to deny the reports. – The Scotsman
Friday News Review
23/07/2010, 08:30:10 AMLeadership Contest
“I am an economic realist. The public finances need addressing. Labour’s plans would halve the budget deficit and remove the bulk of the structural deficit in four years. It is the sensible, credible middle-ground between extreme cuts and unchecked spending. But the government’s proposals, designed without an escape hatch in the event of slowing growth, reflect ideology, not realism” – David Miliband, Financial Times.
Ed, the younger of the two Miliband brothers, has been heavily supported with Coral bookmakers in the last two days to be the next Labour Leader, and has been slashed in price to 13-8 (from 9-4). David is still the odds-on favourite at 1-2. – Live Odds and Scores.
“Marvin … What do we do now?” Hopi Sen’s advice for the next leader
22/07/2010, 10:26:03 AMThe passage of time being what it is, some Uncut readers won’t be familiar with “The Candidate”, a 1972 film featuring Robert Redford as an insurgent Senate candidate struggling to retain his idealistic purity while trying to beat a popular Republican incumbent.
The film was written by Jeremy Larner, a speechwriter for Gene McCarthy in the 1968 Election campaign. McCarthy didn’t win the Presidency, but Larner did win an Oscar.
It’s a great film, not least because of the perfomance of Peter Boyle, playing political consultant Marvin Lucas. Once you’ve seen Lucas, all gleaming pate, glasses, beard and calculated cynicism, it’s hard not to see the West Wing’s Toby Ziegler as a tribute act.
Why do I raise a forty year old American film?
Because the challenges that face the next leader of the Labour party mirror those facing the fictional Bill McKay. At the end of the film, McKay turns to the man who has reshaped and remoulded him and asks “Marvin, What do we do now?”
On the 25th of September, when the last vote has been wrung out of the campaign, when the challenge to inspire the party alone has ended, one of the teams will need a great answer to that question.
It could be Spencer, Stewart, Polly, or Jim, Douglas, Blair or Kate, or Alex or another Jim who get asked. Their answer might decide the fate of the Labour party for years.
The questions the new Labour Leader will be confronted with won’t be much different to the ones they’ve faced over the campaign, but the attention paid to their answers will be.
These first months can kill when you’re a new opposition leader, unknown to most of the public and with years to run before an election, as Kinnock, Hague and IDS all discovered. Each was defined early in their leadership. None quite recovered.
So in an attempt to be helpful, here are five things to do, and two disasters to avoid for the next leader. (more…)
Wednesday News Review
21/07/2010, 08:00:58 AM
A bit of brotherly love from both Milibands at hustings
The Leadership
“It’s easy for me – it’s not on all issues that blood is thicker than water, but I only have one brother standing,” said David Miliband. “I nominated Diane but I fear I would disappoint her (when the votes are cast).” His brother Ed responded: “I would nominate David – I think his qualities speak for themselves but obviously he would be a fantastic leader.” Diane Abbott summed up: “You can see their mum has got them in line on this. Canary Wharf hustings – Docklands 24.
Normally in a Labour leadership election people like us either profess disinterest (or, possibly, even uninterest), or make jokes about intrusions into private grief. I think it would be unwise to be so flippant. I have never set foot in a bookmaker’s in my life, but were I that sort of person, I would be seeing what odds I could get on Ed Miliband’s being prime minister this time next year. Oh, I know he’s the less famous one, and it has been decreed that the Coalition is going to last five years: but stranger things have happened. Therefore, we might take notice of what the Labour Party, in what the media represent as being a quiet period in its fortunes, is up to. – The Telegraph.
Tuesday News Review
20/07/2010, 07:32:12 AM
Miliband: beating contenders
Leadership Candidate Visibility
‘Despite his rivals efforts to make inroads – particularly Ed Balls who seems to be constantly popping up on tv and radio – David Miliband’s support is rock solid and there is no serious money being invested on any of his fellow contenders’ –William Hill
Many of those who do may have listened to Mr Balls’s speech and been enchanted by it. It may certainly have appealed to their lower instincts. It may have tickled their viscera. And for this reason we can conclude that Mr Balls had a good day, awful though he may have been. The simple fact was that he was on his hind hooves, bulging his eyes in parliamentary prime time while none of his leadership opponents was to be seen or heard. – Daily Mail.
Miliband in Scotland
Labour will never form another UK Government unless it revives in southern England. The stark assessment comes from David Miliband as the Labour leadership contender tries to get to grips with the public’s rejection of New Labour, now consigned to the history books and to be replaced by what some have dubbed, somewhat unimaginatively, Next Labour, which Miliband says can be relaunched from Scotland. –Herald Scotland.
Labour leadership contender David Miliband has condemned the decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing as clearly wrong. His comments in an exclusive interview in The Herald today represent a dramatic change in his previous position on Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’s release on medical grounds. – Herald Scotland.
Ed Miliband: finding a voice on Big Society
Big Society
Labour was today quick to dismiss the prime minister’s pledge to deliver the “most dramatic redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street”. This is what Ed Miliband told Radio 4: “This is essentially a 19th century or US-style view of our welfare state which is cut back the welfare state and somehow civic society will thrive.” – The Guardian on Big Society.
Graduate Tax
Vince Cable, and according to Cable, the prime minister and the chancellor; the universities minister, David Willetts; the NUS and all Labour leadership contenders except David Miliband. –The Guardian on Graduate Tax Supporters.
In a letter to the climate secretary Chris Huhne, former climate secretary Ed Miliband called on the government to to stand up against “free-market zealots” and restore funding for green industries. “After helping to lead the debate in changing the balance of our economy in a more sustainable direction, you are now turning your back on green industry and risk undermining the UK’s growing reputation around the world for leadership in this field,” he wrote. “You claimed to be the ‘greenest government ever’ but so far you are turning your back on green jobs and green industry.” – The Guardian.
Abbott
Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP Diane Abbott has called on the Government to continue its aid efforts for Haiti. Ms Abbott tabled an Early Day Motion and requested a meeting with ministers to discuss how further help could be given to the tiny nation on the six month anniversary of the tragedy. – Hackney Gazette.
The idea of Stella and her husband, magazine publisher Alasdhair Willis, doing a Diane Abbott in reverse – dragging their children out of public schools to send them to the local state-education establishments to give them a better chance in life – is laughable. Jan Moir on Stella McCartney – Daily Mail.
Sunday News Review
18/07/2010, 07:56:14 AM
Have you seen this man?
Where’s Gordon?
Some ex-prime ministers take years to get over being ejected; some never come to terms with the withdrawal of power. I don’t blame him for holing up in Kirkaldy and trying to bury his anguish by sitting at his keyboard thumping out a tome on the financial crisis. But I do criticise his colleagues for continuing to flinch from confronting the truth about him. – Rawnsley on Brown, The Guardian.
Since Labour left office their successors have finally been able to go through the books. And they make for uncomfortable reading. Of course it is difficult to fathom the labyrinthine bureaucracy that under-pins the NHS. But it would be hard to imagine any private business accepting without question a supplier increasing the price of a product by almost 1,000 per cent over two years. –Daily Mail.
Leadership news
The widow of John Smith, the former Labour leader who died of a heart attack in 1994, has thrown her backing behind Ed Miliband in the party’s leadership battle. Baroness Elizabeth Smith said she was sure that her husband would have done the same thing if he had been alive. “I am backing Ed Miliband because I identify with Ed’s values and principles, and I know that John would have done so too. Ed is also the candidate who I know has the ability to unify the party going forward,” she said. – The Guardian.
Friday News Review
16/07/2010, 07:29:30 AMUnion backing declared
The GMB Union has backed Ed Milliband for the Labour leadership
Several unions moved to give their backing to candidates for the Labour leadership yesterday as the campaign enters a potentially critical phase.The GMB became the first of the three big Labour-affiliated unions to nominate its choice, urging its 700,000 members to back Ed Miliband, the former climate change secretary. It will ballot all members on the candidates. – The Guardian
Mr Miliband also received support from construction union Ucatt yesterday. The Communication Workers Union swung behind Ed Balls and train drivers’ union Aslef backed Diane Abbott.Voting is split three ways: MPs and MEPs, trade unions and other affiliated organisations and thirdly grassroots activists. The two biggest unions – Unite and Unison – have yet to declare. – The Mirror
Crowdsourcing the leadership: questions for Ed Miliband
15/07/2010, 04:57:30 PMLabour Uncut is interviewing Ed Miliband about his leadership bid.
What should we ask him? What would your vote depend on? Here’s a chance to have your say in a crowdsourced interview.
Add your questions to this thread as a comment, by 6pm on Monday 19th July.
Clegg’s dream will crash and burn – Kevin Meagher predicts tears for the Yes campaign
15/07/2010, 04:28:39 PMREFERENDUMS, the great Clement Attlee dismissively observed, are “devices for demagogues and dictators”.
There’s a third ‘D’. Desperate. They are a means of papering over political cracks; which is why a plebiscite is being dumped on the British public next year on whether we should scrap our first-past-the-post electoral system and replace it with the PR-lite Alternative Vote model.
Attlee’s successor-but-one, Harold Wilson, is the only leader to have held a national referendum. In his case on whether we stayed in the European Economic Community back in 1975. In that instance, collective Cabinet responsibility was suspended to allow a divided government to campaign on either side of the issue.
