Earlier this week Uncut pointed out the less than subtle sub editing skills being put to use by the Tories in the Bloxwich West by-election.
We are pleased to report that the good people of Bloxwich West told the Coalition government, and the wool-pulling local Tories, where to go and voted Labour. A Labour gain, turning a 300 deficit into a 300 majority.
Union 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
Labour 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.
REFERENDUMS, 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.
Just when the Labour party was starting to turn the tables on the Coalition, especially on education, up pops Pat McFadden to say that Labour needs to re-think its approach against the Coalition cuts.
The key line is this:
“Fight the cuts” is a tempting slogan in Opposition, and there are indeed some that must be fought. But if that is all we are saying the conclusion will be drawn that we are wishing the problem away.
I’m not going to disagree completely – saying the cuts aren’t necessary is not a position that chimes with the public (we lost the debate on that). Neither is it a position that will be electorally popular (voters aren’t as protective of the state as Labourites are).
But it’s unclear what line he would want the party to take instead. And here is where the speech falls down, because it fails to take into account the multiple problems Labour currently faces.
For those who say that there are no issues at stake in this leadership election, I strongly encourage you to read both Ed Miliband’s speech on the future of Social Democracy and John Woodcock’s critique on Labour Uncut.
They show that far from this being a contest of just personalities, there are real issues of substance beneath the choice that Labour makes about who leads it into the next few years.
Ed’s speech argued that whilst the economic model of the New Labour years delivered some important benefits for our country and our society, we must also accept its limitations. Particularly the impact which very flexible labour markets have on the type of jobs the UK attracts and the quality of life outside of work for hundreds of thousands of workers.
Peter in print
Labour figures from all sides of the party expressed fury that Lord Mandelson had committed private conversations to print, such as his reporting that Mr Blair believed Gordon Brown to be “mad, bad and dangerous”, and that his then chancellor was “flawed”. Neil Kinnock, the former party leader, was said by a friend to be “spitting”, and John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, “furious”. Lord Mandelson, who was lauded at Labour’s annual conference last year, was warned by some to stay away this year. Political friends and foes urged him to donate a slice of the money he was earning from the book to the party. – The Australian
She argued that Mandelson “knew perfectly well how useless Brown was”, so, by sustaining him as Labour leader, he had fatally undermined the party’s general election chances. In return for his loyalty Mandelson, who “adores pomp and ceremony” was rewarded with the bauble of an honorific title that, to most people, means little. He appeared, she wrote, “like a much-favoured Tudor courtier, stooping under the weight of his gold chains and medallions”. Sieghart concluded with a further jibe at Mandelson’s gross hypocrisy: “The man who ensured that Labour would spend five, possibly 10, years out of power now hopes to capitalise on his tales of those torrid years in government. – The Evening Standard
As the contest drags on heats up, the candidates are spending more and more time together. The hustings roll on, with many more to come, before the coronation at party conference. The teams behind the candidates are busy at work. Some teams are bigger than others. Some teams are busier than others.
Uncut has learned that in team Big Miliband headquarters there is a motivational collage to keep the worker bees on task.
Mounted on one wall of the campaign office there are pictures of all Labour’s leaders in chronological order – from Hardie to Attlee to Blair and Gordon Brown. After big Gordy, the final picture in the sequence is – not Big Miliband.
No, the final picture is on weekly rotation: Abbott, Balls, Burnham and Ed Miliband take it in turns to be the anti-employee of the month. The awful consequence of the slavish devotees failing to tweet faster, knock harder and stuff longer than any of the other candidates’ teams.
Underneath the D Milibandistas apocolyptic vision of the future sits the word that will save them from it: “FOCUS”.
We have been told that the office is at its most productive on the weeks when the image of little Miliband finishes the sequence, but this has not been confirmed.
The referendum on whether to adopt the alternative vote (AV) system for House of Commons is taking place on May 5 2011. It is an important moment in British politics, which will see two coalition partners pitted against each other. It may be easy to think Labour will therefore have a limited role. Actually, the party has to face some tough decisions on its strategy and policy but must avoid being a bit part player in what will be a pivotal moment.
The first, and most important, question is whether electoral reform, however incremental, is the progressive and fair course of action. By allowing second preferences the alternative vote system will stop the scandal of wasted votes endured under the first past the post system. This means that in a Conservative and Liberal Democrat marginal seat one could still make clear one’s support for Labour but vote Lib Dem second to keep the Tories out and vice versa. This seems progressive – an advance for electoral fairness and an enfranchisement of those in safe seats who wish to make their true choice but not hand the seat to a party they want to keep out.
Looks like Michael Ashcroft’s cash hasn’t reached Walsall. The re-run of the Bloxwich West by-election will take place tomorrow, and the poor cash-strapped Tory candidate has had to re-use her leaflets from May 6. Good for her you might say, saving on paper, and after all the only thing that needed to be changed on the front page was the date.
But it’s not just the council candidate who is cash strapped. After Michael Gove took his knife to the Building Schools for the Future programme Walsall schools are cash-strapped too. Luckily for the council candidate you can gloss over the loss of £200million schools investment you were previously claiming credit for, that you’re government has just pulled, with some subtle editing. Click on the picture below to see the Tories make that investment disappear. Now that’s magic.
