PC 3 - New Leadership

[Nathan]

"With all the major parties having a change in leadership, what's next for Britain?"

Ends 23:59 on the 23rd June.

[Everly]

What seems more than clear to me is that while the Conservative Party has chosen a sensible leadership that unites the party and is definitely going to offer the British people a solid and good vision for the future, the Labour Party has chosen radical Marxism and communist delusions that are definitely naïve but can be even dangerous. I have to say I am very concerned about the future of the Labour Party and the course it is taking. We as the Conservative Party keep defending the core conservative values and principles and I can promise you we are going to fight for the British people, for the British family, and also for British business. It is our priority to be there for the people, to listen to their concerns and take them seriously. I would like to stress that I believe that Mr Drummond-MacBeath is going to be a great leader for the party and the whole country alike. And it seems pretty evident that on the one hand, there is us, and on the other, a half-baked attempt at a communist revolution year after the whole idea blew up in the East.

[Ruan Preston (LAB)]

While I am deeply touched by the sudden concern in the Conservative Party over our party's direction, let's not blow this out of proportion. Unlike the increasingly presidentialised Tory party, the Labour Party is more than its leadership. Our Policy Review has shown that we can combine social justice with economic efficiency, pragmatism with idealism. Likewise, I would hope that not even the Tories would oppose the principle of a fair economy, equal opportunity, quality public services and getting people back into decent work. That they all too often give up on those principles for the sake of radicalised ideological rigour does not mean it isn't possible. I and my colleagues will continue to work for a Labour Party that shows it is.

[Alex Cardigan MP (LD)]

11 years since Mrs Thatcher took office. Two million out of work. Inflation ballooning. Growth non-existent. Yet, despite all this, it appears that the Tories and Labour have decided to keep things as they are. Our new Prime Minister is a continuity candidate, at a time when the Conservatives needed a leader who would take politics out of Westminster, not keep on the same destructive course. Labour have chosen to divert back to the socialist course that saw Mr Foot get hammered in 1983. My heart goes out to Mr Rhys Morrison - if Labour had chosen him, we'd have had half a chance of having a proper, realistic opposition Labour Party. History will not look kindly on the decisions made internally in either camp.

Labour have lost the past three elections, and learned nothing. The Tories have ran our economy into the ground and divided our society. The Liberal Democrats have had many false dawns throughout this period, but surely, now is the time for a real change of focus in our politics? Only the Democrats can get Britain out of this mess, and we have a mountain of work ahead of us to do so. If there is one thing our worst enemies couldn't deny, though, it is the tenacity of our locally-led community first campaigns. We'll pound the pavements until we change Britain for good, and I hope people will come with us in doing so.

[Tommy Dawson (LAB)]

The Tories seem content enough to strut out of their high society functions in their fancy pinstriped suits to talk about "failed projects", so let's talk about one. Their social engineering project to wage war on the trade union movement, sell off our industry, and impose a poll tax intended to punish the poor and vulnerable - which millions are making the right decision to refuse to pay - has certainly paid dividends for investment bankers like Marcus Drummond-Macbeath and South African diamond mine operators like Isaac Westcott. But for the ordinary people all across Britain condemned to unemployment, for the millions more forced into precarious labour earning lower wages with worse benefits than they did a decade ago while their bosses take more, and for the mothers and fathers worried about their children growing up in once tight-knit communities now savaged by callous cut cut after cut, the last eleven years have been nothing more than an economic project rotten to its very core. The new Tory Leadership can offer the many nothing because not only is their party structured to do the bidding of the few - they are the few.

James McCrimmon's vision of hope may not go over well in the circles that mine operators in countries that practice Apartheid and City of London speculators run in, but it certainly resonates with working people in cities and villages all across Britain that have been intentionally subjected to unimaginable agony so that the mansions of those in the latter circles could grow grander. 

[Phoebe Lynch (CON)]

I am delighted to be given the opportunity to serve in the Cabinet under the leadership of Marcus Drummond-Macbeath, whom I have full confidence in to lead the Conservative Party through the years to come, into the next election and beyond. The usual suspects have begun accusing him of being out of touch, a Westminster insider and an elitist. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is, and it's what those in opposition are scared to admit, is that Marcus represents the Conservative Party at it's best. The youngest Prime Minister in 200 years, and one of only a handful of Scots to make it to the highest office, he has risen in 3 years from not being in Parliament at all to being Prime Minister. A lot of us didn't know him a few weeks ago. But he has risen to the top because he is one of the most impressive candidates I have ever seen run for the leadership of our party, and he has risen to the top based on his own achievements. I think this is the message that this Prime Minister, and this government, sends to the people is an overwhelming one that stands solidly in opposition to the defeatist attitude of Labour: this will be a government of aspiration, one that will encourage the British people to make the best of this country and the best of themselves.


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Far from the stable leadership that Marcus Drummond-Macbeath has brought to the Conservative Party and to the country, the Labour Party has single-handedly spun itself into a crisis, reversing a decade of modernisation in one fell swoop. When Jim McCrimmon last occupied a ministerial office, he and his party left a country crippled and forced to it's knees, a grotesque stain on our history that it's taken the last 11 years to erase under a Conservative government. Whilst the rest of us are thinking about how to go forward as a nation, Labour are retreating into their inglorious past. And Comrade Tommy, the new Deputy Leader and the man Labour want to put in charge of Britain's financing, has proven himself to be a ranting and raving radical unfit for high office. He has already employed xenophobic and reactionary rhetoric against the Chancellor, due to the fact that Mr Westcott comes from South Africa. If his first port of call when dealing with his opponent is to criticise his heritage, is this really a man we can trust to run the economy? I think you all know the answer to that.

[Brown (LAB)]

The Conservative party has shown that they are deaf to the cries of the citizens of the UK. As people from all sides of the political spectrum demonstrate in the streets against the status quo of Tory policies and Thatcherism, the Conservative party elected a Thatcherite to continue the status quo. The Conservative party sent a clear message: they're not listening to the British people. At the next General Election, the British people must step up and elect a party that will listen to and address their concerns: the Labour Party.

I look forward to working with Mr. McCrimmon and every Labour MP to ensure that we reverse the damage that Thacherism has caused our great Kingdom and build a better, freer, and fairer society that listens to the will of the British people.

[Robert Quinn (LAB)]

What the Conservatives have lost over the years with Mrs Thatcher, is a sense of what being a political party truly means. It is not a group of sheep beholden to an iron shepherd, blindly following them towards the cliff's edge. The Labour Party remains and has always been a party of policy discussion, joint objectives, and a shared vision for a better future for Britain. Mr McCrimmon has been chosen by a majority of the party to lead us forward, but this does not mean he has the monopoly on good ideas, or can have no regard for the views of those who voted differently. He understands that, the party understands that, and this is how Labour works. The fact that the Tories do not understand that says more about them than it does us.

[Alexandria Rolland Somerville]

The British public is tired and sick to death of the failures of the last 11 years. Too many people have been forgotten about and cast aside. Going forward its clear Labour must offer people hope. As long as we can present a clear plan of change. We will be able to win the next election. The Tory party is clearly out of ideas and lack the energy and passion to progress and advance our country.

[Alex Cardigan MP (LD)]

It seems that Britain is headed for another few years of a catastrophically poor political system, based on the results recently. For Labour and the Tories, it's shiny new leaders, but the same old leadership. We are in dire need of having parties that learn from their mistakes, and are willing to champion real political and economic reform. The Democrats have learned from the past decade, and our politics have matured.

As the new leader of the Democrats myself, I want to put forward a clear pitch to the British public - vote Democrat not because you want me to make decisions on your behalf, but because you want the power to make decisions yourself. Grassroots community politics, and a democracy that doesn't accept politicians who are just in it for themselves. I am proud to have had a long career outside of politics, and to have been able to travel the world with a British institution, the BBC. Meeting people from all backgrounds and all cultures in all corners of our planet has taught me one thing - people are never the problem, politicians who just don't care are.