Ed Balls shadow cabinet email

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Dear colleague,

I’ll be sending you a more formal letter in the post, but I wanted to let you know that I have put my name forward for the shadow cabinet elections.

Our task now is to unite behind Ed Miliband, expose the unfair and economically reckless policies of the Tory-Liberal coalition and set out a radical and credible Labour alternative to win back the trust and support of the voters.

That’s what I’ve done my best to do over the last few months as shadow education secretary and in the leadership election. With your support, I would be honoured to continue serving in the shadow cabinet in the crucial period ahead.

We’re all receiving lots of letters and emails at the moment – and after the last four months, you will be particularly tired of hearing from leadership contenders and their campaign teams. So here are just three short reasons why I’m asking for your support:

– Winning the argument on policy
I believe I’ve shown that I have the strength and experience to help Labour set out a credible and radical policy alternative to the coalition. We must challenge the media consensus and win the argument with the coalition on the economy and public services. That’s what I set out in my widely-quoted Bloomberg speech on the economy and throughout the leadership election by putting centre-stage the policy issues that most concern our constituents – housing, jobs, rights at work, as well as schools and the NHS.

– Taking the fight to the Tories and Lib Dems in Parliament
At no stage have I allowed my leadership campaign to distract me from my shadow cabinet responsibilities to vigorously oppose the Government. We need to use the House of Commons to maximum effect, as Vernon and I tried to do this summer on the school building cuts. By organising a relentless assault
in Parliament and in the media we landed the first serious blows on the coalition and caused serious damage to Michael Gove’s reputation. Our work on the Academies Bill saw the biggest rebellion from the government benches of this Parliament so far and education is now the area where the government
has the highest disapproval ratings.

– Campaigning for your constituency
To win the next election we need to take our campaigning in Parliament out to the country too. I will lead campaigning in my policy areas, as I have done on schools and children’s policy, making sure MPs and PPCs have the practical tools and timely good quality materials to take Labour’s message out to their constituencies.

We need to defeat this coalition and win again for the millions of people who need a Labour government to stand up for them.

I would like to play my part in doing that as a member of Labour’s shadow cabinet and I do hope you will use one of your votes to support me.

Best wishes,

Ed

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