This is a list of MPs who have not yet declared for or nominated a leadership candidate. At present there are 42 undecided MPs.
See the list of official nominations on the party’s website here.
Posts Tagged ‘Labour’
Let’s stop the robot-talk and really communicate on the doorstep, says Peter Newlands
08/06/2010, 10:46:08 AMI don’t mind smiling and clapping when a shadow minister arrives at the church or community centre they’re stumping at that day. I understand the arrangement; it looks good on television to have shiny supporters filling out the screen.
The difficult part to swallow is when the cameras are off and we’re in the pub afterwards. I’ve spent many a night getting upset when an earnest young supporter defends some bizarre policy thought up by the high command.
I lie awake after returning from a day’s campaigning and wonder what goes on in the minds of these people. I struggle to believe that they are stupid, or gutless; but I also find it hard to accept that any supporter really came into politics with a gripping desire to lengthen the time we could detain a terror suspect without charge to 90 days. (more…)
Tuesday News Review
08/06/2010, 08:27:13 AMThe debate begins
“During the first major hustings event for the candidates vying to succeed Gordon Brown, Mr Burnham went further
The hopefulls debate at the GMB
than before in distancing himself from the “top-down” approach of Tony Blair and Mr Brown. In a symbolic break with the New Labour years, both Mr Burnham and Ed Miliband suggested they would not have Lord Mandelson in their shadow cabinets.” – The Independent
“The Miliband brothers took different approaches in a grilling by union members at the first hustings of the Labour leadership contest. David risked anger by rejecting calls for a repeal of industrial action laws. “If we return to being a party that says secondary picketing is back and balloting is out, you can kiss goodbye to another Labour government,” he said. But younger brother Ed promised the GMB-hosted debate in Southport, Merseyside, that if elected leader he will work more closely with unions.” – The Mirror
“The potential left contribution is not just about sharpening the style of Labour’s centre-right, but also enriching the party’s substance. There are issues where – as Dr Seuss could have written – the left is right, and the right wrong.” – The Guardian
“The meeting came after five of the hopefuls made their case to the GMB union at a hustings which saw Mr McDonnell win loud applause by attacking Margaret Thatcher’s cuts in the 1980s. However, some observers thought he blotted his copybook by quipping that he would like to travel back in time to “assassinate” the former Tory premier. He later insisted that this was a joke.” – Press Association
The Candidates
“There’s been a lot of attention on Ed Balls over the past couple of days as nominations for the Labour leadership are about to close and the race proper will begin. The big news from the former was his readiness to criticise Brown, his former mentor, while he had an assured performance in the latter” – Political Betting
“There’s been a lot said about Ed Balls’ Observer piece on immigration. But the most striking thing about it to my mind is that it shows that Balls has made the transition to an opposition mindset.” – The Spectator
“Supporters of Diane Abbott are urging fellow backbencher MP John McDonnell to stand down from the Labour leadership race to give the left a greater chance of having a candidate on the final ballot.” – The Guardian
“If Labour’s hopefuls are ever to make amends, it won’t be by playing to imagined prejudice and falling back on the surly, inward-looking populism of the immigration debate. The bitter truth about the last election is that voting for the people’s party became the luxury of the affluent. Now, with an age of unrest dawning, Labour will never win back the trust of the fearful by whipping up the politics of fear.” – The Telegraph
Cameron fast and loose with the facts
Cameron "disingenuous at best"
“Cameron is quite right to reduce the figures to a scale and proportion which means something to the ordinary taxpayer; but he’s treating us like fools to pretend that this figure of £70bn is some sort of deep, dark secret which the last government was trying to hide.” – The Independent
“Now that the new UK government is bedding in and getting ready to unleash austerity upon us, I thought I’d quickly look back at the last Labour government and tell you something that you won’t want to hear: the last Chancellor Alistair Darling did a very good job.” – Investment Week
“To somehow claim that he’s opened the books and found things worse than he thought, that’s nonsense. This is a classic case of the new Government blaming the last government in order to pave the way for things the Tories had always wanted to do, this time getting the Liberals to front it up for them.” Alistair Darling, World at One
The Tories’ lust for cuts reveals itself in local government already, says Amanda Ramsay
07/06/2010, 02:16:47 PMWhen David Cameron coined the phrase “Big Society”, no one really seemed to know what he meant. But take a look at new-style Tory Councils and see how the Prime Minister was sign-posting a well thought-out, ideological intention to take government back to laissez-faire, sink or swim politics, where the state sits back and does the very bare minimum.
It is at local government level that Cameron’s cuts will be fought out. So expect to hear free-market buzz words like “outsourcing”, “privatisation”, “small government” and “consumer choice” as key parts of Cameron’s Conservative vision for municipal governance.
No wonder we’ve heard so much from John Redwood since the Conservatives formed their coalition with free-market zealots Nick Clegg and David Laws. (more…)
Timetable for the Election of the Leader of the Labour Party
07/06/2010, 12:00:11 PMAfter several requests, we’re publishing the formal timetable for the leadership race below.
This is the information sent to MPs by Labour’s General Secretary Ray Collins.
| May | |
| Monday, 24 May |
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| June | |
| Monday, 7 June |
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| Wednesday, 9 June |
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| Thursday, 10 June |
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| Friday, 11 June |
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| Sunday, 13 June |
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| Saturday, 19 June |
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| Saturday, 26 June |
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| July | |
| Sunday, 4 July |
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| Saturday, 10 July |
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| Friday, 16 July |
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| Sunday, 18 July |
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| Monday, 19 July |
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| Tuesday, 20 July |
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| Thursday, 22 July |
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| Sunday, 25 July |
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| Monday, 26 July |
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| Saturday, 31 July |
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| August | |
| Monday, 16 August – 22 September |
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| September | |
| Wednesday, 8 Sept |
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| Wednesday, 15 Sept |
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| Monday, 20 Sept |
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| Tuesday, 21 Sept |
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| Wednesday, 22 Sept |
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| Saturday, 25 Sept |
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Tony Lloyd sets out rules for tonight’s PLP hustings
07/06/2010, 11:03:21 AMChair of the Parliamentary Labour party, Tony Lloyd, has laid out the arrangements for tonight’s PLP hustings.
In a letter to PLP members, Lloyd set out detailed arrangements for the event, held a stone’s throw away from the House of Commons at Church House.
The candidates will draw lots to decide where they sit and in which order they speak. They will then make opening statements for which they will have strictly 2 minutes, with a further 2 minutes for closing contributions.
Lloyd has said that questions to the candidates won’t be vetted, but members will have to submit their question topics before the event.
“I am proposing that anyone who wants to ask a question email me the broad theme of their question so I can make sure we cover as many topics as possible and avoid repetition.
“I am obviously not going to start vetting subjects and questions, but it will in practical terms help me to make sure we don’t end up with the same question being asked several times. It will also help me judge which are the most important topics we all want to see covered.”
There will be as many questions as time allows before MPs return to the House for when the Whip comes on at 9pm. Questions will be taken one at a time and candidates will rotate the order in which they speak, to allow everyone to speak first.
Lloyd has apologised for the ‘somewhat bureaucratic’ process but defends it in the interest of the meeting. “I do think it’s in our collective best interest to make Monday as broad a discussion as possible.”
Labour must have a woman on the ticket, says Lesley Smith
07/06/2010, 08:11:29 AMTen days ago Labour Uncut called, patronisingly, for “a credible woman” on the Labour leadership ballot.
I’ve rarely found myself making common cause with Diane Abbott, and nor is she my preferred candidate, but she has at least seen an open door and walked towards it. There should be a woman on the ticket – but not to save Labour’s embarrassment. It’s an indictment that none apparently wants it (even perhaps Diane) and that we’ve propelled so few women into recent positions of responsibility and recognition that any feel eligible or likely to be taken seriously.
Labour’s 81 women are 31% of the parliamentary party, the highest proportion ever, and include the first three Muslim women MPs. But in terms of women’s voices being heard we’re behind the curve. The 22% of seats held by women in the Commons make Britain the fiftieth most female parliament, level with Uzbekistan, just ahead of China and Malawi but below Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is obvious that broadening participation, in terms of gender, ethnicity, background or experience, changes politics. So a ballot that includes only interchangeable, middle class white men is something of a failure for a party that has banged on about inclusion for three decades. (more…)
Monday News Review
07/06/2010, 07:35:47 AMBalls blames Brown
Ed Balls says he warned Gordon Brown over immigration
“The Labour leadership contest came to life today when Ed Balls launched his strongest attack yet on Gordon Brown, his mentor and patron, and demanded a rethink of the founding principles of the EU to curb immigration.” – The Guardian
“It is Mr Balls’s claim that he warned Mr Brown, his friend and boss for almost 20 years, that will attract much attention. Not least because he claimed that the incident in which Mr Brown called Gillian Duffy, a lifelong Labour supporter, “bigoted” was symptomatic of his refusal to engage with the issue.” – The Telegraph
“Ed Balls, the Labour leadership contender, criticised his political mentor yesterday when he accused Gordon Brown of blundering by ignoring the immigration issue before the general election.” – The Independent
“Meet Ed Balls, the candidate for Mrs Duffy. As the race for nominations closes, the Labour leadership candidates are beginning to focus on party members. With varying degrees of conviction, the contenders have identified immigration as the issue the party must address if it is to reconnect with those voters who spurned it.” – The Spectator
“Balls must have known all along that his party was getting this country into a dreadful mess. His pathetic half-admission of guilt would be more convincing if he weren’t trying to persuade the unions he is a fit person to be Labour leader.” – The Daily Express
The Candidates
“If I thought either Ed Miliband or Ed Balls or Andy Burnham or Diane Abbott or John McDonnell would be a better Leader of the Opposition or a better Prime Minister than I, then I would be running their campaigns. But I don’t, and that’s why I’m running my own campaign.” – David Miliband, The New Stateman Blog
“TONY’S Blair’s former press chief Alastair Campbell has said that Labour leadership hopeful Ed Miliband is not up to the job. He said Ed would only make Labour “feel okay about losing” unlike his older brother, the outgoing foreign secretary, who could get the party “into shape again”.” – The Scotsman
“The Labour leadership hopefuls are to go head-to-head in the first of the contest’s hustings. The six declared candidates will have the opportunity to appeal to delegates at the GMB’s annual conference on Monday afternoon before appearing before fellow MPs in Westminster in the evening.” – Press Association
Final push for nominations
Andy Burnham is confident he will reach 33 nominations
“Andy Burnham yesterday also brandished leftist credentials. He said that he would promote “more job security for workers in private and public sectors” as well as “promoting fairness in pay and aspiration.”” – The Times
“Candidates need 33 nominations to get on the ballot paper, but the former Health Secretary insisted he would be able to garner enough support. Mr Burnham told political editor Adam Boulton he would lay out his case for the leadership this week, promising “policy drawn from my life experiences”.” – Sky News
Taking the fight to the Tories
06/06/2010, 05:18:03 PMLast week, Labour Uncut adversely criticised all the leadership candidates for failing actively to get stuck into opposing the government. We called on them to lead by example, now and in the months to come, rather than endlessly pontificating about what they would do if they were leader.
Subsequently, we heard from team Balls that Ed had in fact tabled 40 Parliamentary questions to Michael Gove that week. Today he has released the following letter to Michael Gove.
This is more like it, we think.
Any examples other candidates might like to send us of what they’ve been actually doing to take the fight to the Tories will be published in the same way. (more…)
Twitter 1 Greencoat Boy 0, says Grace Fletcher-Hackwood
06/06/2010, 09:00:30 AMImagine this scene – or, if you’re one of the many people it’s happened to, remember the last time it happened to you.
You’re with a group of friends and colleagues, heading to a pub after a meeting. There are a lot of you so you’ve booked ahead. Except that when you get there, the manager says he’s not going to serve you. Because you and your friends are gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender.
Oh, and by the way, it is 2010.
Maybe you’d have left without wanting to make a fuss. Maybe you’d have reminded the manager that he was breaking the law, and taken your custom elsewhere. (more…)
