A day in the race: July 13th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

The leadership race has been a little overshadowed so far this week by the early revelations from Peter Mandelson’s autobiography, but there’s still plenty of life in the contest – and the Labour Party being back in the news again could be what the contest needs to jolt it into life.

Today the candidates were campaigning against Gove’s BSF closures/errors, conducting press interviews and getting back down to policy.

ANDY BURNHAM was interviewed by the BBC as part of their series of Labour leadership candidate profiles.

Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg, Burnham took the opportunity to air his problems with the Labour Party, and take a mild swipe at a couple of his opponents over their family ties:

“I have felt for a long time that Labour looked like we were dazzled by power, money, glamour. We didn’t appear to be on the side of ordinary people and we didn’t really understand what people’s lives were like. And I hope that people will see in me someone they can relate to, somebody they can identify with and who has a pretty good understanding of what their life is like. I’ve come from a very ordinary background myself, and have come in to politics not from a political family or the London chattering classes – obviously I’ve come in a different route.”

LabourList have also conducted an interview with Andy today, so keep your eyes peeled for that tomorrow.

ED BALLS travelled up to Sandwell today, after a Today Programme interview that was full of light but short on heat (mostly due to John Humphrey’s interviewing style). Balls was in Sandwell to observe the aftermath of Michael Gove’s disastrous handling of the BSF cancellations. Now that we are onto the fifth version of the BSF document, Ed Balls seems beyond exasperated with Gove – and he’s been running rings around him for quite some time now.

Balls attacked Gove, saying:

“Michael Gove should end this shambles, withdraw these error-strewn lists, and let our communities have their new schools.”

Whilst in Sandwell, Ed recorded the following video:

DIANE ABBOTT‘s new website seems to have been symptomatic of a continued upswing in the output from her campaign. Today Diane has written two blog posts. The first was on the budget, in which Abbott continued to train her fire on the Lib Dems, saying:

“Danny Alexander has shamelessly denied that the budget disadvantages the most vulnerable in society and described the budget as ‘progressive and fair’. Ridiculous. He should be absolutely ashamed of himself for trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public and defending this horrendous budget.

In my time as an MP, I have relentlessly fought for the most vulnerable of people in my constituency for the last 23 years. If those in power are not ready to defend the disadvantaged groups in society then I am ready to ensure that our party will be primed to fill that void come 2015.”

Abbott also wrote today about securing the support of the TSSA.

DAVID MILIBAND met with Amnesty International today along with an asylum seeker who came here in 2007. During a webchat this afternoon, David described what the junta do in Burma as ‘horrific’ and encouraged supporters to join Amnesty International’s campaign to release peaceful protestors Khun Bedu, Khun Kawrio and Khun Dee De in Burma.

This afternoon at 4pm, he took part in a live webchat on his website – the second of the campaign so far. Meanwhile his campaign team have released the audio from David’s phone conference with supporters which he held on Saturday.

ED MILIBAND was the quietest of the candidates today, writing a blog on his website in which he re-iterated his support for a graduate tax, and writing to the Prime Minister on the issue of agency workers (in which he name-checked LabourList favourite Lisa Nandy’s questions on the issue).

In the letter Ed said:

“During Labour’s time in office, the Government set out new rights for agency workers in the Agency Workers Regulations 2010. Concerns have been raised about agency workers working for long periods alongside permanent workers and never getting access to the same pay or other conditions at work. The changes we made will give agency workers the right to the same pay, holidays and other basic working conditions as directly recruited staff after 12 weeks in a given job”

“What amendments is the Government currently considering to these important regulations?”