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Ed Balls’ desert island discs

22/09/2010, 12:30:03 PM

It’s a metaphor for the whole campaign. Ed Balls’ desert island discs are the coolest. No question.

But they’ve come too late. Even the shouting is over. The avalanche of taste-esteem that will engulf the shadow education secretary this afternoon cannot save him from electoral oblivion. Not even the hardcore Labourista’s luxury of choice can save him now.

Nobody is surprised that he has turned out to have an immense appetite and aptitude for the brutal business of opposition. Less predictable was the warmth and “normalness” which was reported in the second half of his campaign.

Had it been a six month campaign, Ed Balls would have done better. But three was too long already.

On St Helena, he would have had Dolly Parton’s astonishing voice, Elvis Presley’s unabating coolness, Billy Bragg’s best song and Bach’s most difficult violin piece to console him. Which might have been quite nice.

In real life, whoever wins will expect Ed to do most of the work.

Elvis Presley – ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ – (live, Madison Square Gardens 1972)

Joshua Redman – ‘Blues for Pat’ (Wish)

Herbert Howells – ‘Like as the hart’ (St Paul’s cathedral choir, Hyperion)

Spandau Ballet – ‘True’ (12″ version)

Bach – Partita No. 2 in D Minor for violin – Itzhak Perlman, EMI

Dolly Parton – ‘I will always love you’

Handel – Ariodante Act 3, ‘Dopo Notte atra e funesta’ (Janet Baker, Philips)

Billy Bragg – ‘Saturday Boy’

Luxury: Karaoke machine

Book: Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

Film: Some Like it Hot

Posted in Inside | 3 Comments »

David Miliband has won, says Dan Hodges.

21/09/2010, 09:00:32 AM

This Saturday David Miliband will become leader of the Labour party. He will have won a majority of his Parliamentary colleagues and the wider membership, along with sufficient support from unions and other affiliates to secure not just victory but an overwhelming mandate. The New Labour era will be over.

A few months ago I wrote that this leadership contest would tell us more about ourselves as a party than it did the candidates contesting it. It has. Less an election, more an exercise in psychoanalysis, we’ve delved into the deepest recesses of a party’s soul. Remorse, guilt, envy, hatred, love, fear, hope. Above all, hope.

We wept for the supporters abandoned to the government’s tender mercies. Felt shame for the crimes we committed in our own ruthless pursuit of power. Looked jealously upon those who wrested it from us. (more…)

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Give us leadership, not dictatorship, says Michael Dugher

20/09/2010, 11:36:10 AM

For backbenchers, especially for the non-aspirant or the new intake, the election of the shadow cabinet is an entertaining process. Perhaps this is why so many of us voted for it. Wannabe shadow cabinet members clog up the email inboxes of hitherto ignored Parliamentary colleagues with their CVs. Backbenchers eagerly await the ‘personal notes’ from candidates to arrive in the post – handwritten to demonstrate the new closeness of the relationship.

Election friends are easily won. But when the next leader of the party says that he or she is “one of a team, not a team of one”, this time they will have to mean it. Labour needs not just a new leader, but new leadership. A different style and approach is required, including to policy-making and to working with colleagues.

All leaders, and especially aspirant leaders in the middle of a leadership election, talk about the need to do things differently, to be more inclusive, to work better with colleagues, and to more closely engage with the Parliamentary and wider party. The difference this time is that the new leader will have little choice but to do things differently. (more…)

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Sunday News Review

19/09/2010, 07:56:34 AM

The smart money

There’s been a big plunge of money for Ed Miliband to become the new Labour leader, with polls indicating he has a strong chance of victory. William Hill have reported big chunks of money for Ed Miliband in their Labour leadership race betting, with the candidate now 11/8 from 3/1 to beat the rest of the pack – the shortest odds that he has been since the contest began. – bettingpro.com

It was your fault

Lord Mandelson told a BBC Radio 4 documentary that the manifesto failed to address those who were not “natural, or automatic” Labour voters. Ed Miliband, a candidate for the Labour leadership, wrote the manifesto but Lord Mandelson accused him of now distancing himself from the document. – bbc.co.uk

Peter Mandelson has launched a blistering attack on Left-wing Labour leadership contender Ed Miliband, blaming him for the party’s General Election defeat. He mocked Mr Miliband for producing a ‘crowd-pleasing Guardianista’ manifesto that ‘offered nothing to people worried about immigration, housing and welfare scroungers’. ‘Nobody else authored the manifesto,’ said Lord Mandelson, who is backing Ed’s Blairite brother David Miliband for the Labour leadership. – Daily Mail

All eyes on Clegg

Nick Clegg has launched the ‘yes’ campaign for the AV referendum amid ever more angry attacks from Ed Miliband. The Labour leadership candidate, who has built his campaign on his ability to attract votes from the Liberal Democrats, said he would “make sure he is punished at the ballot box” for joining government with the Conservatives.

Ed Miliband went further than most with a remarkable outburst against the deputy prime minister. “Nick Clegg has taken the Lib Dems in a direction that they may never recover from, Nick Clegg has sold out to the Tories, and I will lead a Labour party that makes sure he is punished at the ballot box for it.” – politics.co.uk

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Saturday News Review

18/09/2010, 07:56:32 AM

Another Lib Dem defector – How many is that now?

Solihull Lib Dem councillor Simon Slater has defected to the Labour Party. At a press conference in Solihull High Street on Friday Ian Austin, Labour MP for Dudley North, welcomed Coun Slater to the Labour fold and hinted there could be more defections to come across the West Midlands. – Solihull News

The Mirror’s final pitch

So we urge MPs, Labour Party members and those in affiliated trade unions and socialist societies to cast their votes, online or by post, for David Miliband before the ballot closes next Wednesday. Supporters of Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott should consider giving second preferences to David Miliband. The head must rule the heart. It might appear cool to vote for Ed Miliband but the sensible choice is David Miliband. – The Mirror

“If we make the wrong choice we’ll leave Labour stuck in opposition for many years, that’s why this is too important a vote to ignore and it’s the reason the Daily Mirror has backed David. The people who really want him to lose are the Tories.” – Alan Johnson, The Mirror

Kinnock wades in again

Kinnock airs their differences publicly when he tells a Channel 4 docudrama of his surprise at David Miliband’s behaviour towards his younger brother, saying: “David’s response to Ed running has, to my astonishment, been deeply resentful. David’s people are spreading all kinds of bloody bile about Ed being in thrall to the left and he would be in the pocket of the unions and all kinds of crap like that.” – The Guardian

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Friday News Review

17/09/2010, 07:00:28 AM

Miliband: 'winning support'

For the first time in thirty years, the Labour Party is electing a new leader without knowing in advance who it is likely to be. There are other parallels with 1980: Labour has recently been evicted from office, and its successors are turning out to be radical remakers of the state. – The Economist.

“I went into a briefing on a white paper for children [as chairman of the council’s children’s services scrutiny panel]. There was nothing in there for the children of the borough or anywhere else in the country. They are going to put the weakest to the wall. That was the last straw” – Barnsley councillor Lynne Brook on defecting from the Lib Dems to Labour BBC News.

With delegates heading to Liverpool for the annual conference of the Liberal Democrats, the challenge for Nick Clegg is to keep his party behind him as the government begins to flesh out what will be cut from its budget. His party is tanking in the polls and the mood among rank and file may not have been lifted by an interview he gave defending cuts to welfare. – The Guardian.

‘I’m winning support from MPs, members, unions and people outside the party, so I think all claims should be taken with a large pinch of salt. It’s my ideas for the future that have put me in the lead in this contest. I have been a candidate standing for what I am for in the future and not what I am against in the past. – David Miliband, Metro.

Admit it, Clegg, you’re in love. You rise each morning with that ache of uncertainty in your breast. You choose that tie, that suit, those shoes with him in mind. You scurry early to the office, practising the phrase that will please him, the gesture he will notice. When you first see him in the corridor … you can’t help it. The knees go. He is adorable. – Simon Jenkins on Nick Clegg’s leadership love The Guardian.

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New MPs’ open letter endorsing David Miliband

16/09/2010, 11:17:08 AM

Why we are voting for David Miliband

As new MPs, we have thought long and hard about who should be our first preference in the leadership ballot. We are voting for David Miliband because we have been inspired by his campaign and the way he represents the change our party needs to win again.

Most of all, we want to give Labour the best chance possible of returning to government quickly rather than slipping back into being a party of perpetual opposition that is powerless to tackle injustice. (more…)

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Bring back Peter Mandelson, says John Woodcock

13/09/2010, 09:00:07 AM

So, another Labour Party election process is getting underway as the finish line finally comes into view for the main race.

And now we know that the whole shadow cabinet will be elected, those of us in the Parliamentary party who aren’t putting ourselves forward are girding our inboxes ahead of the ballot in conference week.

Having myself been clogging up said inboxes during the select committee elections earlier this year, it ill behoves me to complain about people having the temerity to communicate their qualities to their colleagues ahead of this enormously important vote. (more…)

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Wednesday News Review

08/09/2010, 07:01:11 AM

"Mmm, pass that guacamole stuff"

David Milibut

Miliband is only just recovering from the media derision that greeted his advice to Labour activists on how to organise a house meeting to support his campaign. He urged supporters to vacuum the house, buy some nibbles and turn on the oven. But it turns out that when it comes to his own culinary tastes, he’d rather save himself the bother. Questioned by the Evening Standard newspaper, he not only extolled the virtues of a “fantastic takeaway from Masala Zone in Camden”, but also listed “The Laughing Halibut fish and chip shop on Strutton Ground just off Victoria St” as one of his “favourite London discoveries”. – Channel 4.

Phone taps

Labour stepped up the pressure on the police when Harriet Harman, the party’s acting leader, wrote to the Met commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, asking him to inform any serving or former Labour MPs whose PIN numbers had been obtained. – The Guardian.

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Down the pub with the Labour leadership contenders

02/09/2010, 03:16:46 PM

On Monday the Mirror’s James Lyons had a brilliant interview with the leadership candidates. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s here. If you are a Labour member, please, please read it before you vote.

We inferred from the attempts at ridiculous clever answers to almost every question that this was a set of questions emailed to the candidates rather than done on the spot. We asked, and it was a mix. See the David Miliband tattoo callback, which only works if you know what the next question is going to be. Very clever. Not very funny.

The answers are absolute gold. And one set of them really stood out. The candidates were asked:

“Which four people, real or fictional, would you most like to go down the pub with?”

This is the Mirror’s more socialist version of the ultimate dinner party question: “which 6 people dead or alive would you have at your dinner party?”

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