Get out the vote drives are continuing, as all of the leadership candidates do their best to get their supporters voting, and get new members signed up to the party by tomorrow so that they can vote in the contest. There have also been numerous replies published to Danny Alexander's letter to the leadership candidates on cuts.
DIANE ABBOTTsent out an email to supporters this evening, but the contents have your correspondent baffled. The email, entitled "Diane Abbott Steams Ahead in Labour Leadership Contest", refers to a poll of "loyal Labour voters" that has placed Diane top. In fact, the three polls that Diane links to in the email have placed her 2nd, 3rd and 3rd. It's hard to see how this matches up with the title. Some might even consider this disingenuous.
On closer inspection though, Diane has topped a poll of sorts. She finished top of a vote of 236 LGBT non-member but Labour supporting voters conducted by Pink News. However, she was 3rd in the vote of 680 LGBT Labour members conducted by the same group. Some might suggest that the second vote is more relevant to the leadership contest than the former as the members will have a vote, and of course the vote Diane did win is a small, and not neccessarily representative sample. Diane said in a statement on her website:
On behalf of Alex, myself and all of the LabourList contributors, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who voted for us in the Total Politics Blog Poll. The results came in this afternoon and we're delighted to have been voted the top Labour blog in the country.
LabourList didn't have the easiest of starts, but over the past eighteen months we've shown that we're the place for Labour news, views and campaigning updates, and it's becoming increasingly clear that we are an important part of the party and movement's discussion.
This leadership election has consolidated our position as the number one blog, and we've helped to define the debate with our coverage of the race from day one: calling for a long contest and for a wide field of candidates, tracking MPs' and then CLPs' nominations as they happened; providing space for the candidates and their supporters to debate openly and frankly; and interviewing each of the five candidates. We'll continue to bring you all the latest from the leadership race right up until the finishing line - and we'll be a critical friend of whoever is elected leader.
The first thing I did this morning was check my Blackberry, only to discover that my Facebook friends were writing about using the tube to get to work. This would be distressing if this had been my 'down the pub' friends, but these comments were coming from friends I’ve met through the London Young Labour and working for Labour MPs in parliament. Labour Party members were bragging about crossing picket lines. Twitter was not much better.
This isn't the first time I've noticed this worrying distain from party colleagues towards trade union members who are forced to take industrial action. Before the proposed BA strike in August, which in the end was averted through negotiations, I saw members of my CLP attack the workers for making going on holiday difficult for them.
Nick Clegg says the Constitutional Reform bill which had its second reading in parliament yesterday is the “biggest shake-up of our democracy since 1832". Well, I shudder to think that the cloak of radicalism – and the great cause of electoral reform – is being wrapped around a sectarian piece of legislation that ignores 11,000 of my constituents.
Over 77,000 adults live in Islington South and Finsbury. But under Nick Clegg’s constitutional reforms, when the Boundary Commission determines constituency size, only 66,400 will count. This is true for urban constituencies far more so than in seats like David Cameron’s, for example, where about 83,000 adults live and 78,000 will count.
The post slides through your letterbox and lands with a dull thud on the doormat. You rush to the door and pick up the envelope you've waited so long for - the one containing your Labour Party ballot paper. You tear it open, pull out the ballot paper, and discard the literature that comes with it.
You've made a mistake though, because inside the Labour Today magazine included with your ballot paper (on pages 26-27 to be precise) there's something very interesting indeed.
Diane Abbott is the backbench MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and a candidate in the Labour leadership election. She met Katie McCrory on Friday, September 3rd, 2010.
Now the ballots have dropped, what’s the feeling in Camp Abbott? Well, in Camp Abbott, we think there’s everything to play for. What we keep reminding people is that although the Westminster insiders say I’m coming last and can’t win, the polls show that among Labour Party members and trade union members, who will also have a vote, I’m easily third, easily beating Ed Balls and Andy Burnham, and in some polls, I’m second behind David Miliband. So we’ve got everything to play for. We also remind people that when Harriet Harman won the deputy leadership election, everyone wrote her off in the lead up. She didn’t have the money, she didn’t have the trade union backing, but she won on second preferences. So we’ve got everything to play for. And I think a lot of people who think I can’t win don’t understand the electoral system.
As the last, desperate, scramble for precious votes in the leadership contest gets underway there is one thing that is quite striking; every candidate wants to be the change candidate. I would bet change is the most overused and probably abused concept in this leadership election. David Miliband has his Movement for Change; Ed Miliband talks of changing to win; Ed Balls wants to move on from the ‘soap opera’; Andy Burnham is aspirationally opposed to elites and Diane Abbott is fixated on ‘turning the page’. Of course, considering we have just lost power it should be taken as a given that change is necessary. Whoever wins change is in the air and here to stay. No matter who your favourite is I would hope it would be the one thing that there is broad consensus about, the need for change.
Today the candidates faced two of the scariest challenges of any election - the PLP and Mumsnet. As we roll into the final stages now, every day counts, so there's still a lot of action from all of the leadership camps.
“The choice that the party ought to make is the only candidate who has shown even an inkling of understanding the gravity of the situation the country faces.”
“Mr Miliband understands that Labour needs a credible line on the deficit; he has tried more than any other candidate to appeal to the electorate as a whole. He is the only candidate who commands the personal authority to be a credible Prime Minister and Labour can be a serious Opposition only if it is seen as an alternative government. There is only one candidate who comes close to answering that description: David Miliband.”
One of the defining features of Boris Johnson’s mayoralty is his long list of broken promises, from his commitment to chair the police authority to his promise to deliver the central London cycle hire scheme at no cost to the tax payer.
A second defining feature is his betrayal of outer London.
These two characteristics are combined today into one unpleasant cocktail as Londoners prepare for strike disruption to tube services.
Tube workers from both the TSSA and the RMT are set to strike over plans to axe 800 staff including over four hundred ticket office staff.
Parliament returns this week, and the coalition smash and grab continues. Doubtless, their opportunistic marriage of electoral reform with constituency gerrymandering will dominate the headlines. But an important element of their assault on the public sector will also be carried forward.
The Civil Service Compensation Scheme has a long and complex history - a system of legal entitlements to payments to individuals who lose their jobs through compulsory or voluntary redundancy, which cannot be changed for the worse without formal consultation and agreement with trade unions. The last government tried to change the system too and got agreement from 5 of the 6 unions involved. But Labour’s reform was opposed by the Public and Commercial Services union, who refused to sign up, took the government to court, and had the agreement struck down.
The Ed Miliband campaign says they expect to win the Labour leadership on second preference votes. The Guardian reports the claim that their canvassing returns show supporters of Diane Abbott, Andy Burnham and Ed Balls prefer Ed to David Miliband by three to one.
That rather falls into the "they would say that, wouldn't they" category of electioneering, along with the David Miliband camp's insistence that they are increasingly confident of winning, and also think that David can take at least as many second preference votes as Ed.
But it is a good moment to assess the evidence for the widely discussed possibility that second preferences will decide the election. The answer is that this is a strong possibility that they will if the race is within five points on the first round, but that a candidate with a lead closer to double-figures is likely to hold onto it (unless second preferences really do break as strongly as 3:1 against them).
Following the endorsement of the Mirror last week, and the Observer yesterday, David Miliband today picked up the support of the Times. In an editorial today (£) the paper said David is the "only candidate who commands the personal authority to be a credible Prime Minister":
“The choice that the party ought to make is the only candidate who has shown even an inkling of understanding the gravity of the situation the country faces.”
“Mr Miliband understands that Labour needs a credible line on the deficit; he has tried more than any other candidate to appeal to the electorate as a whole. He is the only candidate who commands the personal authority to be a credible Prime Minister and Labour can be a serious Opposition only if it is seen as an alternative government. There is only one candidate who comes close to answering that description: David Miliband.”
Although the News International-owned Times is in no way a Labour paper, this is still a prized endorsement. What is particularly noteworthy is how scathing it is of the other candidates. The implication (not too subtly expressed) is that none of the other candidates are capable, and that David Miliband is the only reasonable choice.
The only way you can really understand Labour is to understand or at least recognise the very people Labour exists for. Taking an interest in the lives of people is the key to the return of a very potent and successful Labour Party.
But we have a serious decision to make. Is our party going to be one that gives itself over to the rich, vested interests and duplicates Tory policy, only taking power as a coalition or when the Tories make terrible mistakes?
Will we attempt the difficult task of truly modernising our party and making it truly progressive by increasing inclusion on policy creation and evolution, be locked into our communities and serve the people who entrust us with their lives and the country? Will we increase and improve the lines of communication between government and the people which is essential in gaining trust and explaining policy? Will we deal with unsustainably dangerous ultra-greed that the planet can no longer afford, along with the recklessness of an unregulated and corrupt market that has little to do with competition and meritocracy?
Yoosk have asked a set of questions to all of the leadership candidates as part of their hustings. The first questions the candidates faced was "Would you be well placed to lead a coalition government?".
By 
By 
By 
By 
By 
By 
By 
By 
By 
