Over at the unionstogether blog they are doing a ‘question to the candidates’ every week of the summer.  This week’s is on the living wage, which has become rather a surprise campaign theme.  It is worth a read.

In a campaign in which no candidate is strong on content, Ed Miliband has chosen to put the living wage “as the centre of my campaign for Labour leadership”.  Not “to put it at the centre”, you will note, but “put it as the centre”.  Massive difference in that one letter.  For Ed M, the living wage is the defining issue of his leadership bid “because it sums up both the Labour party’s values and its activism”.

Although a nice piece of policy, it would ordinarily seem like a pretty flimsy thing to be the defining essence of an entire campaign to lead the major force in left-liberal politics in the United Kingdom. (more…)