A day in the race: September 8th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Tonight all of the candidates were at the Fabian Women’s hustings, which by all accounts were well attended. Today there was an important vote within the PLP – but what have the candidates been up to on the day the Fabian’s Sunder Katwala declared the race over…?

DAVID MILIBAND today unveiled his “five point plan for greater gender equality”:

“1. Actively promote job sharing among shadow ministers – for both men and women.

2. Supporting the drive to change the core working hours of parliament to reflect modern working arrangements.

3. Appointing a stand-alone Shadow Women’s minister and working towards a 50:50 split between women and men in the PLP by the next election. Iwill ask the NEC to put in place a process to select all candidates in opposition held seats as soon as possible and at least 50 of the top 100 targets should be all women shortlists.

4. Establishing an Equalities Fund and Leadership Academy to develop talented Labour women and ethnic minorities. Progress will be monitored to ensure money is spent well, and the party will publish quarterly information on short-listed and selected candidate profiles by gender (as well as by ethnicity). Best performing regions will be entitled to further funding.

5. Extending the right to request flexible working to all families and work, over time, towards equalising maternity and paternity rights.”

David has also begun to come under fire from right-wing bloggers today. After concentrating their fire on Ed Balls earlier in the campaign (although this seems to have gone quiet lately), David was under attack today with allegations that his campaign team were planning a “victory party” for conference, and that his Movement for Change rally was stacked with organisers from London Citizens, rather than supporters.

Both of these allegations have been denied by David’s team – we are told that he wishes to continue the movement whoever wins the leadership race, and wants to thank and reward those who have taken part by holding an event at conference. The only way to get people in to conference is for them to get tickets through the party, which need to be organised in advance. As for the suggestion that the movement for change is in any way fake, we’re hearing that many volunteers who have taken part in the training are angered by such suggestions…

DIANE ABBOTT said Tony Blair should stop trying to run the Labour party from ‘beyond the grave’, in an interview with the Metro today. Diane told Metro:

“Tony Blair should have waited longer before releasing his memoirs. He was stabbing Gordon Brown in the back and it has not been helpful for the party.”

There has also been further reporting of Diane’s visit to Reading Pride, at where she was made their first patron. Abbott also pledged to introduce genuine gay marriage, saying Britain would be at ‘the forefront of Gay rights issues’ under her leadership.

While at the biggest ever Reading Pride at the weekend Diane said:

“All my life I have campaigned for equality and it makes me very proud to be the patron of Reading Pride – and I particularly like your family area, I think it is really positive.”

“But what I also want to say is this – that when I am leader of the Labour Party I will put Britain in the forefront of gay rights issues. In particular, one of the first things that I will do is introduce genuine gay marriage.”

ANDY BURNHAM has written to health secretary Andrew Lansley following claims that the replacing of NHS Direct with 111 was simply implementing one of Labour’s plans. In it, Andy demands answers on the future of NHS Direct as 15,000 signatories to a petition to save the service have shown it to be a matter of public concern.

Later this afternoon, Andy tweeted:

“Just had amazing reply from Lansley: “I have not announced plans to scrap NHS Direct.” Sounds like big U-turn & famous victory for you all.”

We’ll bring you more news on this when we have confirmation of what the implications of this are.

Earlier today Andy (who you may have noticed by now is a fervent Everton fan) was at the Football Governance Debate in Westminster Hall.

ED MILIBAND‘s campaign were continuning to do GOTV today, sending out their regionally tailored GOTV emails from supporters in each area, with an email going to members in the South today. It appears that their campaign are waiting to see when ballot papers drop in a particular area before sending out these messages.

Ed also sent a Shana Tovah message to supporters today, and released a video from GLA member Jeanette Arnold supporting him:

Today was a quiet day for the ED BALLS camp. This morning the Independent published an interview with Ed, in which he said:

“I want to escape the manipulated view of what I’ve done in the past.”

This afternoon Balls held a members meeting in Milton Keynes, before attending women’s hustings this evening. His team also released Ed’s answers to questions from LGBT Labour.

We’re also told that Danny Alexander has declined to debate his spending review letter with Ed on Newsnight tonight…