The 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