A day in the race: September 4th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Tomorrow is the Sky News hustings, but today the candidates made a flurry of media appearances, attended member meet and greets, and concentrated on GOTV as members vote come flooding in.

ED BALLS became patron of the British Stammering Association today, on another busy day on the campaign trail. At an open day in London, Ed said:

“I’ve always had a stammer and it’s something that never goes away, you have to deal with it.”

“But my message is that you can be a top comedian or a novelist or a politician making speeches all the time with a stammer, as long as you get the right support.”

Ed and his wife Yvette Cooper gave a joint interview to the Mirror which was published today. Aside from coverage of Ed’s opinions on the race there were some nice insights into family life in the Balls/Cooper household, including Yvette admitting that she misses Ed’s cooking:

“because Ed does a lot of the cooking the thing that’s had the biggest impact while he’s been doing these campaign visits is I have been eating quite a lot of takeaways and quite a lot of chicken nuggets.“

Ed’s cooking has become something of a feature of this campaign. Even thinking about it now is starting to make me hungry…

Ed also commented on the big story of the weekend – phone tapping, and urged the home secretary to make a statement. Speaking to Sky News Balls said:

“I think that David Cameron must now ask the Home Secretary to make a statement to parliament on this urgently on Monday. We need to know that this is going to be properly investigated.”

Finally, Ed sent his final email to all Labour Party members today, saying:

“I have shown that there is an alternative – an alternative to the government’s reckless policies on the economy and public services and an alternative candidate in this election. That’s why in the last few weeks more MPs and members are changing their mind and deciding to give me their first preference.”

“I hope you’ll agree that the plans I’ve set out, and the campaign I’ve run, show why I would be the best leader of the Labour Party – because we need someone who will be both a tough leader of the Opposition and a credible Prime Minister.”

DAVID MILIBAND today published an article in the Guardian with Jon Cruddas MP, entitled “We must renew the Labour covenant with the people”. The article itself was mostly devoted to the idea of community organising and renewing the Labour movement which the two men both take seriously:

“We must return Labour to its roots as a movement for mutual self-improvement in neighbourhoods across the country. We need a new electoral strategy, too. Labels such as “core vote” and “middle England” are now largely meaningless. Since 1997 we lost support right across society: 1.6 million lower-income voters and 2.8 million middle-income voters. We need a broad appeal based on principle, not polling – rooted in the lives and experiences of the people. We combine radicalism and credibility by inspiring people with a sense of hope, while taking them with us as partners in a shared adventure.”

This article also seeks to build on Cruddas’s support with the left of the party, and show that David has support from across the party. However it’s unclear at this stage whether or not Job has gone out on a limb here, and whether he has been able to take many of his supporters with him.

Later today David attended one of hundreds of house meetings being held as part of his campaign, visiting supporter Ben Maloney in Enfield.

DIANE ABBOTT was the only leadership candidate who turned up to last night’s hustings in Camden, after Andy Burnham had pulled out the last minute, and the other candidates fielded stand-ins.

Abbott’s campaigning continued today as she arrived at Reading Pride with Reading Labour and LGBT Labour, to campaign and talk with activists and supporters.

She also conducted a range of regional interviews, including an interview with the Liverpool Echo, in which she said:

“I have been in the party longer than any of them and an MP for twice as long.”

“I am a strong trade unionist and one of the biggest failings of New Labour was its refusal to scrap the Tory curbs on the unions.”

“I have a breadth of experience the others lack.”

“I was not implicated in some of the worst aspects of New Labour, notably the scrapping of the 10p tax band, tuition fees and the Iraq war.”

ED MILIBAND responded to the Coulson story today. Speaking to BBC News this afternoon, Ed said:

“This is not some internet gossip, this not some fly by night media organisation, this the New York Times, a very respected organisation which has done months of investigations, has spoken to a whole range of people who have very detailed points that they’ve made about the conversations they had with Andy Coulson.”

“The very least we can have from downing street is a specific response to these allegations, specific details of these allegations and I think until that happens a cloud will hang over both Andy Coulson and indeed the government, because this is the man in charge of the Downing Street media machine.”

Today Ed has attended a Q&A in Leamington Spa with former-MP James Plaskitt, and tomorrow he’ll be in Norwich for the Sky News debate, before holding two events in North London – Islington with Emily Thornberry MP, and at his old school in Camden.

As we reported yesterday, today is ANDY BURNHAM‘s “Ironman” day. Which might explain why he skipped the Camden hustings last night at short notice.

We’ve no news left on how Andy performed in the Great North Swim this morning – but we’ll bring you any news we have as it comes in…