Labour’s got talent

Centre-left thinktanks put their rivalries to one side last month and joined together to host one of the first hustings in a lengthy Labour leadership campaign. Ed Thornton judges who's got talent...

The Fabian Society, Progress, and Compass (along with several other organisations), brought the five leadership contenders together before a 900-strong audience at the University of London's Institute of Education (the scene of Gordon Brown's 2007 leadership contest debate with Michael Meacher and John McDonnell, and the same year's deputy leadership hustings when Hilary Benn was heckled for describing women as ‘intensely practical ... they help to nurture families').

Hustings chair Gaby Hinsliff, former political editor of the Observer, opened proceedings by welcoming the assembled throng to ‘Labour's got talent'. The two Eds, stood next to each other, appeared to both be sporting new haircuts, although Andy Burnham, who in another life could have made it in a Spandu Ballet tribute act, appeared most likely to whip out a microphone and sing.

The MP for Leigh made his pitch for the leadership first, almost launching into song when said he wanted to ‘put the heart and soul back into our party' and would lead with ‘a spirit of idealism'. David Miliband, appearing to speak without notes (don't know where he got that idea from), declared that all five on the panel shared the same values but ‘the question is how you turn the poetry of values into the prose of real change in people's lives'. Nice.

Diane Abbott acknowledged that some in the audience might not think her a credible leader as she wasn't even wearing a tie, but insisted she had the longest record in the party from the grassroots up. ‘This is a turn the page election and I believe that I am the turn the page candidate', she said, to thunderous applause.

Ed Balls displayed a sense of humour and warmth not always picked up by the media, clearly pitching his appeal to mums and dads, as well as ‘intellectuals and business people'. He told of how his 11-year-old daughter told his mother-in-law that ‘you can't use 20th century parenting techniques on 21st century children', and how he once drove Yvette to Stockport to speak at a conference in Southport. All he needed was a sofa, a cup of tea and Philip Schofield and Fern Britton.

Ed Miliband was perhaps the most impassioned candidate, frequently wagging his finger and itching to move away from the podium. He seemed somewhat bemused when his older brother voiced regret that votes at 16 were not put in the Labour manifesto. ‘It did actually have votes at 16 in it,' said Ed, the manifesto's author, ‘but anyway...' Ed later quipped that ‘I offended my brother by saying we were weedy at school ... I'll only speak for myself', to nods from Miliband senior.

All the candidates were brimming with ideas, including a National Care Service (Burnham) training up 1,000 community organisers (David Miliband), replacing tuition fees with a graduate tax (Balls) and filling 50 per cent of the shadow cabinet posts with women (Ed Miliband).

The leadership candidates don't, however, seem to have impressed Compass chair Neal Lawson who wrote a Guardian article saying they seemed ‘wholly incapable of understanding what needs to be done'.

‘An air of unreality hangs over proceedings: not just because Labour's second worst result on record was masked by the expectation of something even more catastrophic, but because no one, in their heart, thinks we have yet hit bottom,' opined Lawson. ‘In the unlikely event that Labour actually wins next time, the party will be back in office, but as far from power as ever.'

Compass's conference last month, ‘A New Hope', was a who's who of anyone who's anyone on the centre-left (and a few more besides). To alleviate dwindling morale among the centre-left, inspiring messages were projected on to a screen in the conference hall from such champions of equality and freedom as Ghandi, Martin Luther King and, er, Lenin. It's all about a pluralistic politics, being open to other ideas.

Ed Thornton

30 Jul 2010 09:50

 

Comments

• Posted by Fred on 30 July 2010, 1:57:39 PM

  But will Labour get in power next time around or will we again return to the long haul of ten fifteen years out of power until we promise the people the earth in the hope of winning. We have had thirteen years of new labour we might well have twenty years of the Tories before anyone Even forgets Blair and his brigade.