Party Lines: November 26th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Ed Miliband was on both Radio 4 and Radio 5 this morning ahead of his much hyped NPF speech tomorrow. In his first interview on Radio 5 he said that he’s a Socialist, and isn’t embarrassed by it, going on to say:

“My Dad would have considered himself a socialist too but he would’ve said we need to have public ownership of everything…I don’t subscribe to that view.”

“What I do say is that there are big unfairnesses in our society and part of the job of government is to bring about social justice.”

“I think the real issue in Britain today is that we look like a society where anybody can get on, where there are huge dreams available to people, but actually the reality of many people’s lives is a massive struggle.”

Speaking soon afterwards on the Today Programme, Miliband said that he didn’t believe that Labour lost the last election because the party was seen as too left wing, and that the last government was good overall:

“I don’t think our problem at the last election was that we were too left wing, which was the problem that perhaps Tony Blair was confronting in the 1990s. I think our problem was that we lost touch with people over a whole range of issues.”

“At the heart of the policy review is saying that we as a party need to go out and re-find where people are. We’ve got to go out and talk to people again about what they want to see for the country.”

Meanwhile, the No to AV campaign announced their most prominent supporters last night, and they’ve wasted little time speaking out on the issue. President of the campaign Margaret Beckett said that AV puts power into the hands of politicians:

“It is something that I have been passionate about for quite a long time because I think that the argument that change to AV will somehow be better for the people of this country is a complete con.”

“As it is, power is in the hands of the people, the party or parties that come first can become the government and it’s straightforward, easy to understand and easy to operate.

“It puts power in the hands of politicians, not the people, and that’s not what I came into politics to do.”

Emily Thornberry MP – another No to AV patron – spoke to Sky News and said that AV is complicated, expensive and unnecessary:

“It’s unduly complicated, it’s expensieve, it’s unnecessary – and I think it’s important to have a direct relationship with your constituents.

“It isn’t like shopping, you should make a choice about which MP you want and vote for it. The AV system will allow someone’s fifth preference to have equal weight to somebdy’s first preference.”