A day in the race: July 14th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

A quieter day in the leadership race, but still plenty to report. The candidates were at CWU hustings this afternoon, before heading to Slough for another hustings. Whilst the arguments in favour of a long leadership campaign were strong, we’re in danger of developing hustings fatigue if we’re not careful. Unless someone can say something new to spice things up that is…

Today LabourList was front and centre, with an article from one candidate and an extensive interview with another. Meanwhile David Miliband showed off his financial clout and graduate tax reared its head once again.

ANDY BURNHAM was interviewed by Alex for LabourList yesterday for a mammoth interview that was significantly more wide ranging than anything Andy has done so far. The full interview can be read here, but there are a few stand out points on the NHS and New Labour that have deservedly drawn attention.

Burnham has concentrated much of his fire throughout the campaign on the London-centric nature of the party, and stepped up his attacks in light of the Mandelson book, saying:

“I know absolutely why I’m in this race – and in some ways the book coming out this week really reminds me of why I’m in it: I am rejecting some of that old style of Labour Party management. We can never again have the People’s Party run by the London Dinner Party circuit. In a nutshell, that’s why I’m standing.”

Burnham was also strident in his criticism of the coalition’s plans for the NHS, saying that they’d strip the N from NHS:

“It’s the dismantling of the NHS. There’s a line in the White Paper which talks about there being no headquarters of the NHS anymore in the Department for Health, and no headquarters in the NHS Commissioning Board. Instead, the headquarters of the NHS would be every clinic and every operating theatre in the country. So, essentially, there’s just no National Health Service; there’s no N in NHS anymore.”

Andy was also interviewed as part of the Guardian politics weekly podcast, in which he spoke about his aspirations for “kids without connections”.

DIANE ABBOTT was the latest leadership candidate to write a pitch to LabourList readers today. In it Diane laid out what she sees as some of her unique selling points – in particular that she is different, and that choosing her would make a step-change for the party. Abbott said:

“All my fellow contenders worked closely with one or both of the party’s the former leaders. That is not necessarily to their detriment but we need to offer an alternative, another voice to the debate.

I am that alternative.

Voters at the polling stations asked us to acknowledge the mistakes of the past. How then would they be satisfied if we then elected those who were complicit to some of the decisions that lost our Party votes at the last election? Mistakes that some of my contenders refuse to accept were wrong.

In this election I plan to do things differently, I want to talk about politics not just policy. I want to ask some fundamental questions -I’ve had enough of tinkering around the edges of policy, we wrote more policy and legislation in government than anyone else in history, if we are to win back power we need to do more than just paper over the cracks. We need a new beginning.

I am that new beginning.”

Abbott has also tabled an EDM about the French government’s plans to bar women from wearing the burka. Diane said:

“The majority of Muslim women who wear the burka choose to do so out of free will, so to criminalise a religio-cultural practise under the pretence of sexual and religious liberation is completely wrong.”

Many of you will have received a letter from DAVID MILIBAND today, as his campaign displays their organisation and financial clout by contacting all Labour members by post. At an estimated cost of £30k (and that’s just for the stamps) – this is an impressive show on financial muscle from the Miliband campaign, and one the other campaigns have shown no ability to match so far.

The letter itself is a thank you to members, and seeks to build on the sense that we need to get back into power, and that David is the best person to achieve that. Aside from some of the lines that the Miliband team have been using on heavy rotation (“Our challenge is not to debate a better yesterday. It is to build a better tomorrow.”), the letter makes a clear pitch for second preference votes if a first preference is already taken – and urges volunteers to seek CLP support as David’s field operation surges ahead of the pack.

David was the third of the Labour leadership candidates to be profiled by BBC news today – calling the 10p tax change a “fiasco”, and saying that he wasn’t ready to be leader in 2007. However, it has also been revealed today via the Mandelson book that David turned down the chance to be Brown’s campaign chief three years ago.

ED BALLS was concentrating on graduate tax today, as he and Ed Miliband tussle over whose issue this is. Ed M got a great deal of attention over his grad tax plans – but it appears that it was Ed B who first put forward a plan for the alternative university funding system. Now it appears that Vince Cable has warmed to the plan, and it may become government policy – so expect the leadership candidates to jump on it and claim it as their own. Writing on his blog today, Balls said:

“While we were right to bring back grants and abolish up-front tuition fees, we did not go far enough. The fear of taking on debt through top-up fees was still a deterrent to applying to university for too many young people from families with modest incomes. It was something I heard time and again from parents and young people in my constituency.”

“When I was a Treasury adviser I argued for a graduate tax, because it was a fairer system which meant no upfront costs and no assumed debt for students and their families. It means graduates pay a contribution to the cost of their university education, but only once they are in work and clearly based on their ability to pay.”

ED MILIBAND had another quiet day today. We’ve still heard nothing by way of a response from David Cameron to his agency workers letter yesterday – if anything is forthcoming that should be tomorrow.

Ed spent the day at the two hustings events, with an interview for the Politics Show South East sandwiched in the middle, which those of you in that catchment area will be able to see on Sunday.