Why I’m backing Ed Balls for leader

By Stephanie Peacock

What do we need in our new leader? This is the question all of us as party members have been asking ourselves in the last few weeks.

I think our new leader needs to be a campaigner who understands what we must do to rebuild our party – and can do so in partnership with grassroots members, trade unions, councillors and the Co-op Party.

They must be able to genuinely listen, understand why we lost and what we need to do to win again; recognise we got some things wrong, but also proudly defend all the things we got right; take the fight to the Tories and Lib Dems as they try to tear up our legacy and slash public services; and be as comfortable in the House of Commons or an international summit as knocking on doors on a council estate or playing with kids in a Sure Start.

And they need to be someone who fights for their values, at the same time as being able to take tough decisions and be strong enough to do the top job. That’s a pretty big ask, which is why I didn’t rush to support a candidate as soon as Gordon Brown stepped down.

But watching this contest over the last six weeks it’s now clear to me that the only person who can do all those things is Ed Balls. Like many young members I was impressed by Ed’s performance at the youth hustings a few weeks ago. He spoke with real passion that night – especially about education and child poverty – as he did at the Compass hustings the next day.

He was the first candidate to call for a graduate tax to replace top-up fees – a principled argument he made inside government. And he was the first to campaign against the VAT rise and to say it is much fairer to extend the top rate of tax to those on over £100,000.

Ed also recognised that the youth movement needs more support, as he called for a full time national Youth Officer – a long overdue and crucial resource if we are serious about supporting young members and building on some of the successes of the last few years. He’s also suggested we extend the £1 youth membership rate to members of affiliated trade unions who haven’t yet joined Labour and set up a Diversity Fund to support members from under-represented groups to become candidates.

These aren’t just promises – I know Ed’s not someone who just talks the talk but actually has a track record of making the right calls and getting things done.

In government he worked on some of our most progressive policies – like tax credits, the minimum wage, the New Deal jobs programme and the fight against child poverty – and he got big decisions right, like Bank of England independence and keeping Britain out of the Euro.

He puts his values into practice, whether it’s promoting co-op trust schools as schools secretary and updating mutuals legislation when he was at the Treasury or being the only cabinet minister to start paying the living wage to all the staff who worked in his own department.

And he’s someone who recognises what we got wrong and how we lost touch with the working people Labour and the trade union movement is there to stand up for – whether that’s on the 10p tax or agency workers.

I’m passionate about educational opportunity, so I want a leader who is going to fight for investment in our schools and children’s services – as Ed certainly did in government – and fight the Tory-Lib Dem cuts to education and their free market school reforms which will widen educational inequality.

Now, more than ever, we need someone who will stand up to the Tories and won’t be knocked off course by them or their friends in the right-wing press.

In the last couple of years Ed was often criticised for talking too much about ‘dividing lines’ and what the Tories would do. Some in the media suggested he was being overly-political and exaggerated in his attacks on the Tories. But if anything, after the last few weeks, even Ed’s warnings about what a Tory government might do weren’t loud enough.

So when Tory bloggers claim they want Ed Balls to win, we should take that with a big dose of salt. After all, it’s only a few weeks since Conservative Central Office threw everything – including Lord Ashcroft’s cheque book – in a desperate attempt to unseat him. The Tories have spent the last couple of years trying to take Ed out. It didn’t work and Ed is now leading the charge against the coalition. In my view, if the Tories and Lib Dems don’t like him, that suggests he’s doing his job pretty well.

I also recognise that Ed, who has recently talked about his stammer, is not known as the slickest media performer. But anybody who’s seen his confident and assured performances in the last few weeks, on Question Time, the Andrew Marr show and at the hustings too, will be thinking that’s now a pretty out of date view.

Ed Balls is Labour through and through. He’s passionate about tackling disadvantage, as he’s proven time and again. And I know he’ll strengthen and defend our vital link with the trade unions – and the Co-op Party too – whenever it comes under attack.

Ed has the right politics and ideas to reconnect with people who didn’t vote for us last time, to galvanise the party and lead us back into government. That’s why I’m backing him all the way.