A day in the race: July 29th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Today was the day of the 5 Live leadership hustings, the first leadership event to be held infront of “ordinary voters”. It was equal parts enthralling and unedifying, but it was certainly a change in both pace and style from the increasingly repetitive conventional hustings events.

ED BALLS appeared to have got the best of the hustings today. Then again, the reactions he elicited from the crowds were pretty broad (a combination of applause, laughter, and even some booing). He was tenacious, though, which is what we’ve come to expect in this leadership contest from Ed.

He was similarly tenacious today while challenging Michael Gove over the academies bill – with particular regard to the number of schools trying to be academies. Ed said:

“Michael Gove railroaded the Academies Bill through parliament in a way that’s only normally done for emergencies like anti-terrorism legislation. He said this was because hundreds of schools wanted to become academies, over a thousand schools had applied and many of them wanted to open in September.”

“Now barely 10% of that number, around 100, have even applied for academy status and none of them will convert in September, Michael Gove must explain why he rushed this bill and misleadingly claimed that more than one thousand schools had applied. It seems to me that the real reason for the rush was to avoid proper scrutiny for a deeply flawed piece of legislation.”

Tonight it’s Team Ed B’s turn on the party phonebank at Victoria Street, and all Labour card holders are welcome to join in. Whether this suggests that they’re open to new people, or short of canvassers, I’m not sure.

DAVID MILIBAND held an event in Brighton last night, followed up by an event in Cambridge today. His team have said that David’s recent events have had a combined audience of over 1,000, which if they are all supporters is impressive. In many ways it’s impressive regardless of whether they are supporters or not.

Writing for Comment is Free today, Miliband defended Labour’s stance on electoral reform legislation, saying:

“Instead of having a straightforward bill to introduce a referendum on AV, which I would support, the proposed legislation combines that objective with partisan provisions for a top-down, hasty and undemocratic review of constituency boundaries.”

“The government intends to arbitrarily reduce the size of the commons by 50 seats, and impose rigid new mathematical rules for drawing boundaries that must override all other considerations, such as geography, history and local identity.”

David came across well in today’s debate, and was shrewd enough to take the opportunity to mingle with the audience during the breaks – which may have won him some support. As is sometimes the case, what he said was engaging and funny – yet he sounded a little stiff when he said it. If he loosened up I really think it would go a long way (presentationally) to deal with some people’s concerns about him.

ED MILIBAND‘s campaign today revealed the extent of their online fundraising, and their wider “small donation” fundraising efforts. In total they received £19,000 in online donations, and £39,298 in total (online and offline) from 583 donors. These are certainly healthy sums to have raised, especially the £19k raised online which suggests that their fundraising efforts have been more successful than we had initially been led to believe.

Tonight Ed will be on Newsnight talking about the coalition’s gerrymandering plans.

DIANE ABBOTT wrote for the Guardian today on the issue of “joint enterprise”, continuing a theme on criminal justice that Diane has been persuing for a few days now. Diane said:

“The most famous modern use of joint enterprise was in convicting Derek Bentley of shooting a police officer in 1952. The actual murder was committed by his accomplice, Christopher Craig. But, because Craig was only 16 at the time, he escaped hanging. Bentley was heard to utter the words “Let him have it”, so he was convicted of murder under the principle of joint enterprise and hanged in 1953.”

“But the police appear to have stepped up the use of the doctrine in recent years to deal with the specific problem of urban gangs. Gangs are a big issue in the inner city. And this goes beyond the tabloid headlines. People feel menaced by them. Many of the most unpleasant phenomena of modern youth culture take place in gangs, notably gang rape.”

“As a strong supporter of civil liberties, but also as someone who has first-hand experience of the problems posed by gang culture in urban Britain, I can see both sides of the argument on the use of “joint enterprise”. There can be no doubt that the law warrants review.”

Diane should be applauded for taking on some very tough issues. No-one can accuse Diane of trying to tackle this leadership the easy way.

ANDY BURNHAM was charming and friendly today in the 5live hustings, but was often squeezed out of the debate, which has sometimes been a problem for Andy both in hustings, and in the contest more widely.

Tomorrow he’ll be in Northern Ireland, and makes history as the first Labour Party candidate to visit there during a leadership race. Andy picked up the support of the Northern Ireland CLP recently, so he’ll be hoping for a good reception there.