Dianne & Sadiq for Mayor

Dianne & Sadiq for Mayor

Finally, Vote for Diane Abbott for Mayor and give Sadiq Kahn your second preference. This is an odd one, there’s little to choose between the candidates on policy, although Gareth Thomas is for Heathrow Runway 3 and all the others oppose it. Jobs vs. Air Quality. I like Sadiq Kahn’s commitment to planting trees and buying up London’s Hospital’s debt, although there may be issues of ultra vires and I like Abbot’s bravery in pursuing rent controls, which should be Labour policy. With few exceptions, I expect each of the candidates to nick the best policies from each other, so it’s important to hear from them using their own words. Certainly at the South London hustings, Christian Wolmar was congratulated by several of the candidates for his transport policy initiatives and there’s little doubt that many of his ideas will make it into the manifesto.

The issue here is heart and commitment and I am supporting Dianne. She has a record of getting the big questions right. …

Labour’s new extended family

Labour’s new extended family

Labour’s electoral roll for its 2015 elections has now closed. We took a decision last year to extend the franchise for the election of Leader, Deputy Leader and its candidate for Mayor of London to supporters and over 120,000 people have signed up as well as over 100,000 new full members. I hope that this is a first step for them in helping Labour rebuild and create an effective opposition, although not only do we need them to stay with us, we need to respectfully listen to them.

As one minor elected voluntary official I welcome you to Labour’s movement. …

Labour’s Human Rights champion

Labour’s Human Rights champion

Left Foot Forward publishes an article “Who is the ‘human rights candidate’ for Labour’s leadership?”. This is based on a post on the Labour Campaign for Human Rights, who publish the candidates answers in their own words  on their own blog.  One of the LCHR’s questions was on Surveillance, and none of them have consulted me ;), but Cooper and Burnham both support the need for judicial authorisation and probable cause. Kendall and Corbyn both support strengthening the legal framework in favour of civil liberties. Kendall states she opposes the privacy breaches inherent in mass surveillance. Corbyn that he thinks mass surveillance is ineffective (and thus not justified?). …

An abscence of politics

Labour’s Leadership election is hotting up, and we’ve had the bleatings of the Blairite right and now the desperation of the perpetual “Leadership behind closed doors”. Here are four stories, originally posted as a storify, one on Alan Johnson’s appeal to “Stop the madness”, Owen Jones on the right’s demonisation of Corbyn and his ideas,  Peter Preston, an ex-Guardian editor on the press and John Harris on his conversations and experiences of Labour’s grass roots.

This was originally entitled “An abscence of politics” because I thought that the debate had drfited from the politics of the manifesto to that of abuse of either members or Corbyn. As ever with storify mirrors, backdated to the date of original publication.

I particularly like this, ‘John Harris shows more insight than he knows, when he says, “The cacophony of pro-Corbyn noise on Twitter and those packed meetings symbolise something beautifully simple: people refusing to do what they’re told.”’ …

It’s still the economy stupid

It’s still the economy stupid

Is the economics getting lost in Labour’s Leadership debate? I think so. Only Jeremy Corbyn is talking real economics, the others led by Liz Kendall are talking about credibility, which I assume is code for reducing the deficit through fiscal policy i.e. expenditure cuts and tax rises. I am disappointed in Yvette Cooper, yet strangely not surprised by Andy Burnham.

Corbyn is not arguing for a Soviet style economy, the macro-economics is Keynesian, the micro-economics maybe socialist because he argues, in contrast to the Tories and their media shills, that wealth is created by both workers and entrepreneurs.  …

London’s Labour Leadership Hustings

4 leaders

So the Leader debate is becoming about winning in 2020, how to win back the Tories and the Presidential qualities of the candidates, that’s what the Press are saying and that’s what the supporters of the three wise monkeys are arguing. The question that needs to be proved by them is that they are any more likely to win than Corbyn with his Keynesian anti-austerity policy. I attended the London Hustings for Labour’s Leadership yesterday. I don’t think it will have changed many people’s minds.  …

Britain succeeds

Britain succeeds

Labour launches its Manifesto with the tag line, “We believe that Britain only succeeds when working families succeed”. In his speech at the launch, Ed Miliband further makes the point that the obverse, that just because it’s working for the few, be they rent takers, landlords, entrepreneurs or press barons doesn’t mean its working for everyone, in fact it’s a proof point that it isn’t. N.B. A leader of the Labour Party said that, although his words are better than mine. It’s the first time in a long while that the Tories are going to have to argue why it’s in the interests of the majority that the economy is structured in the interests iof the rich. It’s an end of consensus that “trickle down” works. …