PC 4: Labour Leadership Race

[Andy Edwards]

Over the course of the last few days, the Conservatives have laid plain what they're putting forward for leadership: backwards ideas designed to benefit the few and to demonise everyone else. The only things that seem to be sacred to them are playing aristocrat and hunting foxes: it's not our world-class education system, it's not our NHS, and it sure isn't the working and middle classes and their families who might get a pittance while the rewards go to big businessmen and the well-to-do. What Labour needs to rise above this is serious leadership. It's not someone whose manifesto is best found in a remaindered book bin, but someone who has experience with leading and who can rally all of Labour to the right cause. I know that we're heading on the right path: we have ideas, we have principles, and we're not sacrificing them for the sake of power like the Tories are already ready to do.

If the spin is to be believed, Labour is a party of syncophants and an "old boy's club" just as much as the Conservatives are. If the spin is to be believed, we're losing seats in general elections because we're not hitting the needs of the British people and our communities. But I know we have the right ideas to make sure economic growth benefits everyone, that rights are protected, and that no one is left behind when it comes to making life better and easier for everyone. And to get there we're going to need serious leadership. Experienced leadership. And certainly someone who's done with "business as usual." Labour is ready to recapture the hearts and minds that led us to our successes- and I know that with a proven, steady leader we can finally deliver for those very people that count on us.

[Jack Wright]

I am inspired to see such large crowds at our events as momentum grows in our fight to reclaim this once great movement of ours for the working class. The New Labour clique expected a coronation - what they're realizing is that they can't continue stiffing our socialist grassroots forever. Working communities throughout Britain continue to suffer and the very neoliberal consensus that hollowed them out is structurally incapable of helping. This campaign is about tapping into the anger and disenchantment millions of people feel toward a political and economic order that condemns them to suffer so that fat cats may enjoy greater grandeur and channelling that righteous anger toward building economic and social justice in this new millennium.

[Kayla Gray]

I decided to endorse Harry Laski for the Deputy Leadership because we know he has a clear set of Socialist Principles. Like me, Harry was elected in 1997, however it’s clear that Harry has no lack of experience and is certainly a competent choice for a Deputy Leader that will reconnect Labour with its grassroots in the Trade Union movement and with the working class.

Our society needs change, and Labour needs to be the party that delivers that change for our society, but we won’t deliver that change if we don’t stick to the principles which we were founded, which New Labour has gone against, such as undermining the principles of our National Health Service through PFI.

Harry Laski is a principled grassroots campaigner, not backed by rich donors, but instead standing up for the working class which Labour was founded to stand up for. Labour needs to reconnect with those communities that we represent and pop the Westminster bubble, and Harry is the Deputy to do just that.

[Barclay A.A. Stanley]

Well that was nice, wasn't it? Unlike the other group, Labour's infighting was all couched in terms of endearment. The closest thing we got to a knife's-out comment was James Doherty talking about low turnout being caused by centrist New Labour politics. That might have been true, but Dr. MacAndrews sits to the left (albeit slightly) of the New Labour project. I get why the SCG want to push that narrative, but it's going to take more than a few off-hand comments to make it stick.

Overall, this was very tame and didn't do much other than to say "hey, we're still in control, we're still professional, and we're still going to work with ruthless exactitude to achieve our aims." And that's great, because the Tories did, well, the exact opposite. There were a few attacks on the Tories, but nothing particularly sustained. There was also a policy announcement or two, but nothing new or exciting. Basically, it was a lot of people coming 'round the eventual winners and singing kumbaya.

Momentum:

Labour: +1
Conservatives: 0
Liberal Democrats: 0

XP:

None