The next leader of the Labour Party (and other matters)

[Brendan]

That passage just takes everything that people found unpopular about Labour?s last government and promises the opposite.

[????]

Dave R he's not trying to create policy he's asking for a renewal of thought and debate and so it's not meant to have any answers. It's not a manifesto.

[david_carnell]

Thank you Quids. I've been laid low by a bout of Ebola so haven't been able to update till now, but that's essentially correct. Cruddas wasn't drafting the manifesto for 2015 or whenever it will be - he was merely calling for renewal and discussion. And credit to him for doing so in a passionate and elegant manner.

So, the hustings (Fabian Soc not Newsnight)?.I can report the following:

For my money, Ed Miliband won the debate. His opening speech was comfortably the best, he spoke with passion, anger and humility. He seems to have a clear vision of where he wants the Labour Party to go, coupled with a desire to democratise the party and allowing members to have more of an input. His beliefs seem to come from true values rather than a mere desire to regain power.

The other front-runner, his brother David, was impressive and statesmanlike. A few years as Foreign Secretary have imparted gravitas. Alas he also is slightly cold and has a tendency to come across as an automaton or technocrat. His idea of funding local Labour ?organisers? much like the TUC did to some success is excellent.

Dianne Abbott came across as more confident than I had seen her previously without the faltering speech. She was warm and sincere and the audience, for the most part, loved her. She still won?t win though. She spoke with passion and her best line was when attacking Tory cuts, ?when David Cameron says these cuts will change our way of life, he doesn?t mean his life, he means your life?. She also has a nice repartee with the other contenders and a nice line in self-deprecation.

Not as much as Ed Balls though. Personally, I?ve never liked him, and I still don?t especially, but he did well. He?s a big guy and is imposing in the flesh. This would certainly play well across the dispatch box. He?s lightening-quick with the joke too. I don?t want him as leader but in the right role he could be devastating ? perhaps up against Osborne as Shadow Chancellor.

Andy Burnham is the outsider. Little known by the public or many within the party I thought he might have a decent shot. The ?Cameron candidate? if you like. Alas, whilst he was likeable with his ?I?m a working class scouser? shtick his reaffirmation of the righteousness of the Iraq war lost him a lot of sympathy in the hall and he just doesn?t seem to possess the stature to lead the party. Beyond care for the elderly he also seems to lack clear drive and vision of what he wants the party to be for.

The debate itself was notable for two moments. The first, when candidates were asked to name three issues they had disagreed with the government over, initially stumped them but rapidly became slightly absurd with almost all removing themselves from the 10p tax debacle to the extent you wondered how it got approved in the first place.

The second was the final question of the night, which asked if the candidates thought of themselves as socialists and what that meant to them. All replied in the positive except D Miliband who fudged a little about what it said on the membership card and that he would agree with that. Ed Miliband said he was a socialist but that it meant something different in the 21st century to the ?control of the commanding heights of the economy? that his father (the noted Marxist scholar, Ralph Miliband) would have recognised and subscribed to.

A good evening.

[RosieH]

I've rather favour Ed Milliband myself, but worry he lacks the statesmanlike qualities needed to lead a party. Clearly Labour now has some time to practise, being in opposition and all, so he could develop thsoe skills, but I'm not sure that after Brown they'd choose an unphotogenic leader again (much as I loved him).

Or would they?

[david_carnell]

Ed Miliband is probably Steve Bell's most favoured candidate....

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2010/6/10/1276125851907/Steve-Bell-10.06.10-001.jpg

Second from the right btw folks....

[Loz]

He's made Balls look like a young Ken Clarke...

[vinceayre]

Please please please let it be Diane Abbott.

[Loz]

Are you a Tory, vinceayre? I suspect that is Cameron's preferred choice, too.

[vinceayre]

Hello my name is vinceayre and I am a Tory.

But in my defence I did vote for Labour twice, and I have worked in Nunhead since the mid seventies and have seen first hand what poverty does to people, so I am all for any party that tries to relieve the burden of poverty. This country is so rich yet there are so many very poor people in it, its just wrong.

The Labour party betrayed the poor people of this country and they are actually finished as a force for social reform and care.

I hope they elect the person they most deserve.

[Brendan]

vinceayre Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hello my name is vinceayre and I am a Tory...

>.... This country is so

> rich yet there are so many very poor people in it,

> its just wrong.

Don?t let the other tories find out you think things like that. They?ll kick you out for betraying their core values.

[vinceayre]

* hides under the table in case his Tory neighbours see him posting on the EDF*

[Loz]

Did anyone see 'This Week' last night? Andrew Neill had Diane completely cornered on her 'West Indian mums' comment. She was not a happy bunny.

[frierntastic]

Abbott is a hypocrite, a relic and, as I am a Tory, hopefully the next leader of the Labour Party. Her comment about West Indian mum's was poor judgement, her failure to retract it political suicide.

If Labour supporters have any sense whatsoever, this will be a landslide for Miliband the elder. Even though on the other side of the political divide, I recognise his experience, intellect and political nous. Ed M is just not up to the job (yet) and Balls is a national joke - if the Labour Party elects a Gordon Brown mini-me they will keep themselves out of power for a decade.

Cameron is too moderate for the left to label him as a "nasty Tory", too clever to engage in a class war (where he can only lose votes) and knows that, for a year or two at least, the public will buy the idea that the pain is only necessary because of what the last government did.

Labour need a real, hard-fought, leadership contest, a centre-left leader (because there just aren't the votes on the left anymore "we're all middle class now" - Blunkett, and to plan for the election in five years.

[Loz]

Balls on QT was strange, too. He does this weird thing with his eyes and eyebrows when he's talking that makes him look like a startled rabbit. It's very disconcerting when you are listening to him.

[Marmora Man]

I also thought Ed Balls on QT came over as quite the rudest guest they've had for a long while. He seemed intent on making everything very personal between him & Vince Cable - he certainly failed, in my view, to present himself as a credible senior politician let alone an international statesman which is part of the Prime Minister's job description. I wouldn't trust him.

[Brendan]

frierntastic Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> for a year or two at least, the public will buy

> the idea that the pain is only necessary because

> of what the last government did.

Well it?s either that or a sadistic attack on the weakest in society by a wealthy elite. But Tories wouldn?t do that. That?s not what they?re about. I mean, surely a party based around such viciously antisocial ideology would never be tolerated.

[Marmora Man]

  Quote

Tories ..... viciously antisocial ideology

Brendan - I recognise this is your normal level of hyperbole but would you expand on the this vicious ideology? As a Conservative I'm not aware of it.

[Brendan]

Only caring about how something can benefit you and yours and not just showing no regard for how it affects others but actually taking actively aggressive action against those that you are harming.

This tends to be the Tory attitude whether it is about economic or social issues.

We are talking about people who will happily take help away from single mothers so that they can allow those whose parents own 1million pound homes to inherit them tax free. People who see no problem with making people who earn less that ?10K a year pay income tax so that they can protect people like buy-to-let investors, who exploit young families and damage society, from tax.

Those are just 2 recent examples. I?m not even getting into how their leadership is all from a privileged protected class, the type of social exclusion they exercise and that they will do anything to maintain it rather than break it down and cast it away for the evil filth it is.

You may think it hyperbole but these are just my observations. I am not an unreasonable or unintelligent man. I have just watched and taken in, sometimes to my utter cringing amazement, the attitudes and ideas people have.

Perhaps I am a product of my background but I often find little or no difference between conservative British people and the old white elite in South Africa. They have exactly the same attitudes except the Brits are more intelligent and devious in the type of discrimination they practice.

[frierntastic]

Crikey Brendan, where on earth did all that come from? Lets look at your points in turn shall we:

What are the Tories (who, as an aside, are in coalition with the Lib Dems - lets not forget that) taking away from single mothers? Please expand.

Income tax - the ConDems just raised the income tax threshold by ?1,000 and aim to raise it further. This is far higher than Labour placed it (after 13 years!). Would you rather it were lowered?

Buy-to-let: Capital Gains Tax wasn't raised this time, but it will in the future. This will cost buy-to-letters more. That revenue will go to pay off Labour's deficit (about 155 billion this year!) and the national debt (which, when I last looked, was edging close to 1 trillion pounds!). To put that in some perspective, our debt is near enough equivalent to the UK borrowing 1 million pounds a day since - if you believe in all that - Jesus was born. That much.

I have only just read your comment about buy-to-letters exploiting young families. Where would these families live without a large rental market?

Leadership as a privileged protected class? I went to a state comp and my son will, no doubt, go to a state comp. But if I could afford it I would send him to the best school that money could buy - I desperately hope he lives the most privileged and protected life I can give him. I like the fact that Cameron is very bright and went to Eton and Oxford. BTW you should google Blair's school Fettes, makes Eton look like Grange Hill. You know who else wen to Public school and/or Oxford? Harman, Miliband, Balls...all of them.

As for your comment about Brits and white South Africans? Pathetic.

There is a big difference between the past and present Governments - aspiration.

[Loz]

frierntastic - you also missed the error about "people inheriting million pound homes tax-free" - the budget did not raise the inheritance tax threshold one penny.

And also CGT *was* raised this time - but only if you are in the higher tax brackets.

[Brendan]

Ok not that I thought this would need explaining but perhaps I wasn?t being clear. I wasn?t speaking about the coalition government but about the type of policies which conservatives would see as morally just and have been suggested by them.

These and more are all issue I have heard bandied about by conservatives in my office.

Another recent corker by a chap (who has thankfully left now as his pal got elected and is bunging him a job) about scrapping state pensions and university funding. He had some very unpleasant and contrived justifications for it but when you got down to it, it was mostly because he resented elderly people and didn?t like people who he considered below him outperforming him at uni.

These are the sort of people the party attracts.

The sort of people who speak about those who are forced to live on benefits and crinkle their noses in scorn but if you mention fixing it with equitable pay they shriek injustice.

[Brendan]

frierntastic Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I have only just read your comment about

> buy-to-letters exploiting young families. Where

> would these families live without a large rental

> market?

Eerrm, they would buy the houses they lived in instead of being forced to rent off the people who elbowed them out of the market.

[citizenED]

Brendan, are you talking about the kind of people who think it is justified to buy ornamental floating duck houses on their expenses, or who think it is morally justified to have their moat cleaned at tax-payers expense, perchance?

[david_carnell]

frierntastic Wrote:

> You know who else wen to Public school and/or Oxford?

> Harman, Miliband, Balls...all of them.

Both Miliband brothers attended state comprehensives and gained access to Oxford Uni on their own aptitude. I can't imagine their father paying for their education!

[Jeremy]

Brendan is talking about a group of Tory voters he knows, and is extrapolating this to all Tory voters and to the party itself.

He is right that the image of the average tory is not exactly glowing, but at this point in time I'd rather give the party the benefit of the doubt, and judge them on their actions rather than their reputation.