A day in the race: July 20th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

A much quieter day in the leadership race today, but the five candidates continued to campaign on the issues they hope will define them and the race.

In a blogpost this afternoon, ED BALLS continued his attacks on Michael Gove’s Academies bill, following last night’s votes in the house. Ed said:

“In an appalling perversion of the Academies programme this Bill allows grammar schools to convert to Academy status. The Labour side of the House cannot accept that and we will fight it every inch of the way and challenge Conservatives and Lib Dems to support our amendment to prevent this happening. Academies receive their share of money intended to help manage special needs but Grammar Academies will be allowed to turn many of those for whom those resources were intended away at the door.

“I will also be urging Liberal Democrats to back their long standing commitment as a Party on Personal Social and Health Education for all children by backing my amendment to ensure that Academies and Free Schools must offer that to all children.”

This evening the Ed campaign released a video of Ed with his London campaign team, which you can see here:

ANDY BURNHAM today met with the campaign group “Intern Aware”, to speak with them about the problems caused by unpaid internships. Burnham has been strong during the campaign when talking about his passion for “kids without connections” – although it’s unclear whether this is an extended metaphor for how he sees himself compared to the other candidates. On Twitter this afternoon Burnham said that it is:

“Time to take a stand. Trend towards unpaid work is working against social mobility in Britain.”

“Feel strongly as 1st job was unpaid local journo. Will be challenging BBC to justify use of unpaid interns.”

The DAVID MILIBAND campaign today launched an appeal for donations, emailing supporters this morning to ask for help funding community organisers for David’s “Movement for Change”. The email said:

“We can win this campaign – we can rebuild the Labour movement as an organising, campaigning “Movement for Change”. Organising for change in our communities made the Labour Party the force for good it is today and the kind of movement that we need to reinvigorate. David’s training programme is equipping a whole new generation of activists like me with these skills.”

“To build the army of organisers and leave a lasting legacy for the Labour Party we need to call on our supporters’ generosity. Can you donate £10 or whatever you can afford to let us train more people in the skills of grassroots community organising”

This seems to contradict what Miliband said when announcing his fundraising haul for the first months of the campaign, when he said that the £20,000 donated by Lord Sainsbury had been “ringfenced to train up to 1,000 Community Organisers”. Miliband has by far the largest campaign fund of any of the candidates. Perhaps his campaign have been surprised by the funding in small donations raised by the Ed Miliband campaign last week, and want some of the same action for themselves..?

Tonight David will be attending a Kurds for Labour event.

ED MILIBAND wrote another open letter today, after his open letters to David Cameron and Chris Huhne in recent weeks. Today he wrote to the Speaker, suggesting that Clegg and Cameron may have misled the House over the removal of the Sheffield Forgemasters loan. Ed said:

“This government’s mishandling of the decision to withdraw the loan promised to Sheffield Forgemasters has been appalling. They have made an unwise decision worse by their complete ignorance about what is actually going on inside the company. Given the government’s damaging ineptitude, I believe that the time is now right for an independent panel to investigate fully the government’s cancellation of the Forgemasters loan and provide a binding recommendation on whether the loan should be re-instated.”

DIANE ABBOTT is the only candidate to call for a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan, and last night she laid out her thoughts on the subject – including her view that British troops are facing “mutilation”:

“I have visited Afghanistan and soldiers that have been there on numerous tours of duty have told me that we are now referred to as an army of occupation.”

“No Western army has won an army of occupation in Afghanistan for two centuries. The terrain makes it impossible for invaders to prevail against a determined Afghan resistance. Not only have we not brought peace to Afghanistan, but the opium trade is at record levels. The army is corrupt as are the police.”

“It may be that there is a need for a peacekeeping force in Afghanistan but this should be a UN force ideally led by Muslim troops. The Afghan people are suffering. The rate at which British troops in Afghanistan have been killed has nearly doubled in recent months and is proportionately far higher than our American counterparts.”

“Our troops are enduring a horrifyingly high level of mutilation. So I believe the time has come to set timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan.”