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Tuesday News Review

06/07/2010, 07:34:33 AM

#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

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The week Uncut

04/07/2010, 01:44:53 PM

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

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Sunday News Review

04/07/2010, 09:15:18 AM

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

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Saturday News Review

03/07/2010, 09:11:03 AM

Electoral reform

“Labour leadership contenders David and Ed Miliband said they would campaign for a “yes” vote if they were in charge. But rival Andy Burnham yesterday dismissed voting reform as a “peripheral issue”. He said: “It is not my party’s job to prop up the Liberal Democrats by helping them win a referendum that is important to them.” The expected timing of the vote, on the same day as the Holyrood parliament elections, has caused fury in Scotland.” – Scottish Daily Record

“Mr Cameron always intended to turn the tables by pushing Labour out to the left. The coalition with the Liberal Democrats wasn’t planned, but it may make his task easier. The candidates in Labour’s leadership election could make the same mistake as the Tories after 1997, as they fish for Labour votes, apparently forgetting that they will soon need to appeal to the wider electorate.” – The Independent

“Labour has backed the introduction of AV for Westminster, but some Labour MPs still see the referendum plan as a chance to embarrass the Coalition. Ed Balls, a candidate for the Labour leadership, also criticised the suggested date. “Holding it on a day when some parts of the country have elections but others do not will lead to unfair differential turnout,” said Mr Balls. A May 5 referendum would also be in defiance of advice from constitutional experts. Earlier this year, the House of Lords Constitutional Affairs Committee concluded that there should be “a presumption against holding referendums on the same day as elections” because of the risk that voters would be confused and results distorted.” – The Telegraph

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Friday News Review

02/07/2010, 07:05:49 AM

The candidates

Andy Burnham calls for Labour to be the party of "aspirational socialism"

“Andy Burnham today calls for Labour to exhume its socialist roots and become the party of “aspirational socialism”, running on ideas that include the large-scale purchase of private accommodation by councils. He also redoubles his campaign for a 10% inheritance tax on estates to pay retrospectively for care in later life, which is aimed at swing voters in the south.” – The Guardian

“This week, Ed Miliband backed the idea of extending the right to request flexible working to “every worker, not just those caring for families”. This is an idea first proposed in 2007 by Beverley Hughes. Back then, Hughes argued that “everyone has a life outside work, not just parents . . . many people make valuable contributions to their communities in their non-work time”. When you read that quotation now it feels like a “big society” argument, yet the coalition is going in the other direction.” – The New Statesman

“This week Ed Miliband put a revived “21st-century social democracy” at the heart of his own leadership campaign. Miliband has always seen himself as a social democrat, even in the years when the term was almost as unfashionable as socialism in Labour circles, and in this week’s speech he called on his party to “turn the page on New Labour orthodoxy”, with a different kind of economic model based around industrial policy, stronger regulation and the promotion of “responsibility” in the boardroom.” –The Guardian

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We need a bang ‘em up motion on prisons next week

01/07/2010, 11:37:46 AM

Next Wednesday is an opposition day in the House of Commons. This means that the opposition gets to choose the subjects for debate. Labour’s ‘usual channels’ have yet to determine what next week’s motions will be.

Uncut would like to venture a suggestion: the debate should be about prisons. The motion should be strongly worded, along the lines of Jack Straw’s article in the Daily Mail. The thesis can be summarised thus: prison works; bang ‘em up.

Our view is not based on the rehabilitative efficacy or otherwise of prison. It is tactical. (more…)

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Tom Copley is not happy being on Ken Clark’s side

01/07/2010, 11:07:18 AM

Agreeing wholeheartedly with a politician from an opposing party on a matter of serious policy can leave one feeling rather uncomfortable. This is particularly the case when one’s own party has been spectacularly wrong on said policy over many years. It was this unpleasant feeling that hit me when I heard that Ken Clarke, the Tory justice secretary, had launched an assault on the “bang ‘em up” prison culture of the last twenty years. (more…)

Posted in Grassroots, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Thursday News Review

01/07/2010, 07:52:28 AM

Ed M offers freedom and flexibility…

Ed Miliband has pledged greater freedom for the Scottish Labour Party

“Speaking on a visit to the Scottish Parliament, Ed Miliband said Labour should “lighten up” and allow Iain Gray, the party’s Holyrood chief, to draw up his own plans. The former Energy and Climate Change Secretary also gave his backing to handing Scottish ministers limited tax powers but opposed the “full fiscal autonomy” demanded by Alex Salmond.” – The Telegraph

“Labour leadership hopeful Ed Miliband has called for every worker to be allowed to work more flexible hours. The shadow cabinet minister said the state needed to do more to raise people’s quality of life outside work, urging that markets should not be left to decide “what is acceptable”. He said employees in Britain worked “harder for longer” than anywhere else in western Europe. “This is not the good society we aspire to,” he told Labour activists in London yesterday.” – The Scotsman

Nature vs. Nurture

“All of this creates a dilemma for Labour, which Jack Straw pre-emptively tackled in dismal fashion by decrying “handwringing” in the Daily Mail. Those Labour leadership candidates who talk about pushing the political centre ground in a progressive direction now face a great test. Do they revert to the populist fearmongering of the Blair years? Or do they instead engage with the more enlightened debate which Mr Clarke has boldly unlocked?” – The Guardian

“Candidates for the Labour leadership took a more nuanced view of the row. Andy Burnham said it was better to spend money helping people get their lives back on track than to fund private companies to run prisons. Ed Balls pointed out that the government was poised to cut budgets for crime prevention programmes such as youth activities and programmes for teen pregnancy and drugs misuse.” – (more…)

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Uncut’s open letter to PLP chair, Tony Lloyd

29/06/2010, 12:47:26 PM

Dear Tony,

At last night’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party you told MPs off for leaking information to websites. Passing information to websites, even Labour-friendly websites, is not in the comradely spirit, you said.

A particular example you gave was the reporting of Labour MPs who didn’t vote in the select committee elections. You said that this was definitely not in the comradely spirit.

You framed the point in general terms. We thank you for your delicacy. But Labour Uncut is the website in question. The select committee non-voters was our story. And it is only Uncut which has been publishing reports from PLP meetings and leaked round robin emails sent to Labour MPs. (more…)

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