There are so many US election obsessives in Labour politics that you can be sure that each leadership campaign knows the US campaign textbook inside out. Though there are generational differences - many were closely involved in the New Democrat/New Labour exchanges; others took part and have tried to learn more from the Obama insurgency against the Clintons; while the civil rights movements and liberal campaigning remain an inspiration to many in the party.

There was more evidence of that today, as the Ed Miliband campaign conducted what must be the first ever mass voter identification push by text message in British party elections; a tactic central to Obama's US mobilisation.

My mobile received this at lunchtime today:


Hi It's Ed Miliband. Hope you don't mind me contacting you about the Labour leadership election. Can I count on your support? Reply Y or N. To opt-out text stop to [number redacted]


The final day of July saw the last formal hustings event before the ballot papers go out at the start of September. Campaigns who have found that format constraining can now freestyle - and each needs to work out how to generate momentum. Each of the candidates is having a short break, but there is little chance of a mooted August "holiday pact" to cease campaigning taking root. The race is entering its crucial stage.

So which campaign has an "August surprise" up its sleeve - and what might it be?

Might Jon Cruddas endorse David Miliband - as had been mooted - or might he stay out of the fray, and continue to campaign for the possible future post of elected party chair?

Campaigning will get more robust in the final weeks. I doubt we would hear anything as aggressively negative as Hillary's "red phone" attack on Barack Obama, but it will be interesting to see if any campaign thinks that "going negative" will bring more gain than risk in an internal party contest?

Does any candidate have an unanticipated way to play the second preferences game in a transferable vote election, which could change the race in an unexpected way. Could any form of candidate pact help deliver the race - or could that again backfire, if it seems like the Old New Labour way of operating after the Blair-Brown years?

Are there any other August "game-changers" in this race which nobody has thought of yet?

Do share your ideas or theories with us - in the comments or by email - as to whether there are moves to look out for which could shake the election up?

By Tracey Cheetham

Nuclear weapons have been part of the UK's defence programme since 1952, with Trident in place since 1994. The arguments for and against the UK having a nuclear weapons system have rumbled on for a long time - but now, with the deep cuts being inflicted by the coalition, it is time to look more closely at the moral and economic justifications for maintaining Trident.

Trident consists of four nuclear submarines, of which there is one on active duty at all times. Each of the Trident submarines can carry forty-eight nuclear warheads with an explosive power of up to 100 kilotonnes. The bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945, had an estimated power of 12 - 15 kilotonnes. The true number of people it killed will probably never be known, but estimates of the five-year death toll exceed 200,000 people. 

In 1968 the British Government ratified the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, (NPT); currently 189 countries have done so and as part of this, they agree to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, to work towards complete nuclear disarmament and peaceful use of nuclear technology. Indeed, Article VI of the treaty states:

"Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."

So the UK has an obligation to actively pursue disarmament. With Trident requiring such enormous investment, what a perfect opportunity to do so, yet the Coalition insists it is committed to the renewal of Trident and Liam Fox has insisted that he will not include it in the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) that is underway.

The cost of replacing the Trident submarines is estimated at £20billion and estimates for the lifetime cost of maintenance of the system exceed £80billion, so surely with the level of cuts being imposed by this government across the board, Trident must be included in the SDSR.

In June, Dr Liam Fox promised that the nuclear element of our defence systems was safe from the chancellor's axe and recently he was still stating that it would not be included in the general defence budget. Yet now George Osborne says:

"I have made it very clear that Trident renewal costs must be taken as part of the defence budget."

So which is it? With public spending being cut to the bone and the effect that will have on the lives of the public, is it right to prioritise a not-likely-to-be-used nuclear weapons programme? Do we actually need a nuclear submarine on active patrol at all times?

Osborne has opened up another dilemma for Fox here. If Trident is to be included in the general defence budget, where will he find the money for the equipment and resources needed to supply our troops? As Dr Fox himself admitted, earlier this month:

"To take the capital cost would make it very difficult to maintain what we are currently doing in terms of capability."

Perhaps that is the real reason for the hasty withdrawal of our forces from Afghanistan. Is it a choice, Afghanistan or Trident?

Nonetheless, it definitely is a choice of which has greater priority between Trident and public services. It is a question that Nick Clegg asked himself last year, and arrived at this conclusion:

Given that we need to ask ourselves big questions about what our priorities are, we have arrived at the view that a like-for-like Trident replacement is not the right thing to do."

This was a flagship Lib Dem policy - and one that many in the Labour Party agreed with. So what changed his mind? Was it again the lure of power? Is this another example of Clegg forfeiting principles for portfolio?

In the current economic climate ordinary people are facing a bleak future of stripped-back public services, job losses and withdrawal of welfare. To push ahead with the replacement of Trident and the financial commitment it requires without a review is irresponsible, a poor use of available funds and, as with many things that the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg are doing, unprincipled.

Our guest writer is Liam Young, 14, who has recently joined the Labour Party

I was happy to find during the 2010 general election that the Labour Party was supporting the motion to lower the voting age to 16, in the Labour Party’s 2010 manifesto, something I feel very strongly about. In the last few days I have launched a campaign linked with Channel 4 on the Battlefront website, entitled “Votes At 16“, I have since named my campaign 16Votes, and myself and a team of activists are now aiming to get the campaign to first place, so we can make our mark.

The campaign itself went from last place to second place over night, and since Tuesday, Labour leadership candidates David Miliband and his brother Ed have publicly endorsed the campaign, in line with the Labour Party manifesto. Other crucial figures include Sally Bercow, wife of the speaker, who has shown her support as well via twitter.

The campaign’s main aim is to lower the voting age, in order to allow a more fairer and representative electorate to take the place of today’s current electorate. The youth of today is completely ignored in most areas, and there are only a few organisations that allow young people to have a say and make a difference.

In order to continue with the campaign, I have written letters to David Cameron, Nick Clegg and other senior ministers.

You may remember David Cameron spoke about the “great ignored” during his election campaign, and in the letter I have written to him, I ask him to follow through with his promise in representing the great ignored, which he called “the hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding majority”, by lowering the voting age to 16, because the majority of the 16 are 17 year olds in this country who are denied the right to vote at each general election are hard-working, tax-paying and law-abiding citizens!

At the age of 16, we can marry our MP, legally have sex with our MP, join the armed forces and fight for our MP and pay tax for our MP, but the one thing we cannot do is vote for our MP. How can this be justified?

I would like to ask you to join my campaign, and there are numerous ways to do so:

• Please go to the Battlefront website and vote for my campaign here – http://www.battlefront.co.uk/12th-campaigner/votes-at-16/

• If you are on Facebook join the group here – http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=146527158696847&ref=ts

• For More info visit the website – http://www.16votes.org.uk/

In this guest post Jonathan Rutherford introduces a new e-book which seeks to deepen the Labour party's debate ideas, organisation and party renewal.

What is Labour's future? Soundings journal, and Open Left at Demos Demos ask the question in a new, jointly published e-book, Labour's Future (PDF) We don't offer answers, but set out a series of points of view - from Phil Collins' Liberal Republic to Doreen Massey's, 'the political struggle ahead' - that frame the coming debate.

The e-book comes out of a seminar held back in May that brought together 50 people associated with different political perspectives. A number of papers were given and Jon Cruddas and David Miliband gave responses. The aim was to explore what common ground might exist and the prospects for a political axis around which to build cross-party political renewal.

There were some sharp differences of opinion around the role of markets and our understanding of capitalism and the legacy of New Labour. But there was also a shared agenda around pluralism and the importance of alliances in a time of political realignments. There was agreement about the need for the democratic reform of the party and for developing community and workplace organising. Jeremy Gilbert argues that New Labour's view of party members was that they were the problem and not the solution.


'In the era of ‘we-think’ and network culture, the collective intelligence of the membership is the greatest possible resource that the otherwise-impoverished party has at its disposal'.


There was also an honesty about the depth and seriousness of Labour’s defeat. We know that Labour is disconnected from the people, but there is a reluctance to face up to the current depth of feeling against it. If Margaret Thatcher’s class war created an enduring and single-minded hatred towards her from her victims, New Labour has become the focus of an eclectic range of hatreds that emanate from across significant sections of society.

Time will tell how enduring these are, but some honesty and good politics will help dispel them.

We know Labour has no political economy for rebuilding the post-crisis economy. The discrediting of neoclassical economics has left a great hole in policy-making. Cameron has been allowed to steal Labour's traditional values of mutualism, association and relationships for his Big Society – or at least to clothe himself in their language. The truth is that Labour in power stopped building relationships with people and it stopped building a politics of dialogue and mutual respect.

Both Anthony Painter and Stuart White address the issue of reciprocity as a foundational ethic for Labour politics.

The e-book offers a start to a deeper and broader debate that the format of the leadership contest has not enabled. The process of change is only just beginning and it is for the longer term, in or out of office.

As David Lammy writes, 'We must revitalise our party, recognising the limitations of the political methods of the last fifteen years.'

The contributors are Philip Collins, Sally Davison, Jeremy Gilbert, Stuart Hall, David Lammy, Neal Lawson, Doreen Massey, Anthony Painter, James Purnell, Michael Rustin, Jonathan Rutherford, Marc Stears, Allegra Stratton, Heather Wakefield and Stuart White. You can download the e-book here.

By Krupesh Hirani

The scrapping of the revolutionary Building Schools for the Future programme serves as a triple whammy to families around the country and represents a false economy from the education department.

First and foremost, it is a cut aimed at the group in society who had no say in the election: children. Instead, the coalition government has rushed through the Academies Bill, advocating a ‘Free Schools’ policy aimed at schools already doing well and ignoring the issue of there being a too few school places to meet demand and the need to improve our failing schools. Every child should have the right to a decent standard of education in a respectable environment, and these cuts will mean that children will continue to be educated in dilapidated buildings, unfit for the twenty-first century, without enough school places to meet the shortages.

Secondly, the building works programme provided an opportunity for stimulus in the building and construction trade. Many are still feeling the effects of the recession and the forthcoming VAT rise will increase the price of building materials, affecting profit margins and thereby adding greater financial pressure in the sector.

Thirdly, schools serve as community hubs. The scrappage deprives young people of decent quality activity centres. School buildings can be utilised by local authorities to provide after-hours services for young people. Better standards in buildings and halls also boosts the commercial potential of schools. Many hire out school halls for private functions and parties and this generates income, putting money back into the public pot.

The education department’s permanent secretary admitted in a letter to Ed Balls that the programme had Treasury approval and had not received any objections. We know the money for our schools is there. After all, where will the money for the free schools policy come from?

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Today lacked yesterday's fizz and crackle, without a live hustings in front of a studio audience, but as the candidates head towards their summer holidays (which they will surely be glad of), there were a few final punches to be thrown.

ED BALLS responded to the news that Michael Gove's colleague Theresa Villiers has written a letter of protest to Gove after a school was rejected for academy status in her area. Ed said:

"Michael Gove's ministerial colleague is right to share our fears that the Tory academies programme will simply be about rewarding schools that are already doing well."

"This is a complete perversion of Labour's successful academies programme which was about turning round under-performing schools, often with pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in some of the poorest areas."

"Despite the over one thousand schools the education secretary claimed wanted to become academies and the emergency legislation railroaded through parliament, only a very small number of schools have applied to be Tory-style academies. And now we learn even this small number are in question with around 50 of them being told they aren’t ready which leaves a tiny number, if any, now going ahead this autumn."

Many of you will have received Ed's direct mail letter over the past few days (and those members who haven't should receive it tomorrow). It's well designed (and sticks to the same house-style as his website) and covers the key topics he's been trying to focus on in the leadership race - attacking the government on VAT and schools.

What is interesting about the letter is not the content itself, but the very existence of an Ed Balls direct mail. This suggests that the campaign has a greater financial clout than many had imagined. But is this a sign of a campaign in rude health, or the last throw of the dice from a candidate struggling to break into the top-two? Only time will tell.

ED MILIBAND spent today in Wales, holding events in Anglesey and Wrexham, as well as conducting an interview with Channel 4 news. The afternoon in Wrexham was spent meeting party members, trade unionists and community organisers.

This afternoon, Ed's campaign put out an email to supporters, called "We're gaining ground". The title seems certain to be a (sub)concious dig at the David campaign - although whether or not Ed is gaining ground is a matter for debate. The email said:

"We began this campaign for the Labour leadership eleven weeks ago, in the difficult days immediately after the Tories and Lib Dems created their callous coalition. Back then, we had no money and no organisation -- in fact, this all started in my living room at home."

"But our campaign is now gaining real ground -- and real momentum -- because people understand that Labour must change if we are to win again. That's why, in this last week alone, 7 additional MPs have offered me their backing, and it's why we've secured the nomination of our 6th trade union."

"Our campaign is powered by people -- thousands of people like you who have signed up to volunteer, and over 600 people who have helped us raise over £40,000 in small donations so far. There are just 8 weeks left to go in this fight. It's a fight for our values -- values of equality, the dignity of work, aspiration and liberty. And it's a fight I intend to win."

There's a kind of Obama outsiderness to this which is quite smart and disarming - especially the stuff about the campaign starting in his living room. Most campaigns of course start somewhere humble - few spring fully formed into a Westminster office complex. I'd expect this to be a fruitful line for Ed, as the aspiring insurgent, and one he'll continue to use over the summer break. So far it's working - the campaign are reporting that they raised £1000 in the hour after the email was sent.

DAVID MILIBAND wrote a blog on gay marriage today, as he sought to dispel criticism that he has been insufficiently supportive of marriage equality in comparison to some of the other candidates. David said:

"It is an anomaly that gay couples – although they can call each other husband or wife – can’t say they are married. Canada and Argentina have shown the way forward. That’s why I support calls to change the definition of marriage to include exclusive relationships between couples, regardless of sex. This will mean gay couples will be able to describe themselves as married."

"This does not force change in religious practice. I support the Labour amendment to the equalities act which made provision for religious communities to officiate civil partnerships but only if they felt appropriate. Under a new definition of marriage, the situation should to be the same. We should not force churches, mosques and synagogues to officiate over gay marriages but equally we shouldn’t stop those who want to."

"Gay marriage is the logical next step in our mission for equality, but is just one part of our approach. Homophobia remains too common, including in schools. I want to tackle prejudices in law and in practice so we are always standing up for equal rights."

ANDY BURNHAM as been in Northern Ireland on a busy day of visits - the first leadership candidate to travel there during a leadership contest in Labour's history.

Tomorrow will be a big day for Andy, as the party launches the Defend our NHS campaign (somewhat conveniently, you might say) on Andy's doorstep in central Manchester. You can sign up to the campaign, which will surely be a big one, here.

DIANE ABBOTT  has had a quiet day today, but never one to miss a chance to advocate the removal of Trident, she was on Twitter this morning, saying:

"Tory ministers are squabbling over the £95 billion cost of replacing Trident nuclear missile system. I have an idea for them. Scrap it."

The Week in Politics

• Just as last week, Nick Clegg took his customary place as the laughing stock of Westminster, flip-flopping all over the place on when exactly he changed his mind on the deficit, cut loose by the Governor of the Bank of England – who he’d attempted to hide behind – and forced to come clean on last night’s excellent Nick Robinson documentary that he had in fact changed his mind before the election.

This despite going into the election saying precisely the opposite, with a deficit reduction plan closer to Labour than the Tories. Not once during the campaign, during the TV debates or in the manifesto, did he say otherwise. As Tom Clarke writes on Guardian.co.uk today, “democracy was the loser”:

Finding himself in a hole, Clegg has kept digging by revealing that he had in fact changed his mind on the immediate cuts in the heat of an election battle where he was campaigning vigorously against them. Other Lib Dems are still quietly insisting that there really was a change of heart just after polling day, and that it was brought about not so much by King as by the combined weight of Treasury advice and pressure from European bond markets.

The whole saga is embarrassing for the Liberal Democrats, and quite delicious for Labour’s tribal tendency. Coming after reports that the yellow team were saying different things to the blue and red teams during the parallel coalition negotiations, the revelation that Clegg was demanding cuts in private while decrying them in public…

• The Chilcot inquiry came back into the news this week, with John Prescott (sorry, Lord Prescott) appearing today, and Hans Blix giving evidence on Wednesday.

Prescott said he had “doubts” and said that many of the reports about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) appeared to be just “tittle tattle”, while Blix described the Bush administration of being “high on military” in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001, saying: “They felt that they could get away with it and therefore it was desirable.”

Chilcott and his team will now travel to Iraq, with the report due to be published at the turn of the year.

• The Labour leadership contest continues, with the first full scientific survey of Labour party members and Labour-affiliated trade unionists published today – showing David Miliband ahead of brother Ed, 54 per cent to 46 per cent in the run off. On first preferences in the electoral college overall, David has 37%, Ed 29%, Diane Abbott 12%, Andy Burnham 12% and Ed Balls 11%.

The YouGov poll also revealed that of the 1,102 trade unionists and 1,184 party members questioned, only 25 and 29 per cent respectively consider Lord Mandelson an asset – with 61 per cent of both groups branding him a liability. It would seem Labour’s fallen out of love with our Mandy…

 

Progressives of the week

Cataluña, or more specifically the Catalan regional parliament, which on Wednesday voted to ban bullfighting; as the Indy reports: “As of 1 January 2012, the choreographed estocada de muerte – or death knell – will be history throughout the wealthy, independent-minded region and the fighting bull – toro bravo – will receive protection under Catalonia’s animal rights laws.”

Animal rights groups hailed the decision as the day “five centuries of cruelty have come to an end”, that from now on “cruelty to animals, disguised as tradition, will no longer be tolerated”.

 

Regressive of the week

Mad Melanie Phillips, who this week wrote a Spectator blog laying into David Cameron for his remarks on Turkish membership of the European Union and the situation in Gaza, under the headline “1940 this is not”, in which – to give just one example – she writes: “As I have previously observed, there is now in Britain a pre-pogrom atmosphere against Israel.”

You have to read it to believe it. You really do.

 

Evidence of the week

The news from Scotland, covered for Left Foot Forward by Ed Jacobs on Monday, that just 23 per cent – less than one in four – of Scottish secondaries are meeting the SNP’s 2007 manifesto target for school sports teaching. To make matters worse for Alex Salmond, not one single school in the first minister’s Aberdeenshire local authority has met the target.

 

What’s trending on Twitter

According to our friends at Tweetminster, the top stories this week are:

• Wikileaks – Afghanistan War Logs;

• Cameron’s visits to Turkey and India;

• Cameron’s comments about Pakistan (which angered Pakistan);

• Michael Gove and the latest academies balls-up;

• IDS & Welfare reform;

• Theresa May, ASBOs, cut price alcohol and police reform;

• #worththelicencefeealone; and

• Hans Blix at the Iraq Inquiry

@bbcnickrobinson

Last night saw the post-election programme, ‘Five Days that Changed Britain’, (watch it here – and it’s well worth a watch), in which the beeb’s Nick Robinson told the story of the events of the week after election day, when time stood still, there was the most surreal atmosphere around Westminster and nobody knew what the future held…

@RossLydall: Standard hacks chatting about classic Mandelson phrase from @bbcnickrobinson documentary last Night. “A bit Gordon-ish”

@ericpicklesmp: Massive doco by @bbcnickrobinson last night. Shame my interview about the role of sub-regional dog wardens in “big society” was edited out.

@samuelcoates: You must watch @bbcnickrobinson’s documentary on the coalition negotiations. Very nicely put-together: http://j.mp/dBLk36

@michaelomh: The election in May, according to everybody except Gordon Brown: http://bit.ly/aHyfqU (Soundtrack, btw; The xx *again*?) @bbcnickrobinson

@webblette38: @bbcnickrobinson Immensely impressed by tonight’s BBC2 documentary. Like a peep behind the curtain. Many thanks

@OllyGrender: Cracking programme @bbcnickrobinson great stuff

@AbigailH: Would definitely recommend #5days by @bbcnickrobinson – a really good hour long summary, with some big players: all except Brown.

 

And finally…

As you may have seen yesterday, we’re asking all our lovely readers to vote for Left Foot Forward in Total Politics’ annual “Blog of the Year” awards; send an email to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com – ranking between five and ten blogs in order of preference – by midnight tomorrow. Full instructions can be found here. Thanks!

By Wayne David MP

As we move beyond the first phase of the Labour leadership contest, it is clear that the eventual victor will be either David or Ed Miliband.

At the start of the contest I thought carefully about who to support; I was torn between the two brothers. But what made me sway in the direction of Ed was two factors. Firstly, the warmth of his personality, combined with his lucidity and ability to genuinely listen. Secondly, his belief, borne out of our collective experience, about what needs to change in our party for us to win power as soon as possible.

As the campaign has gone on, I have been more convinced of the correctness of my choice. I have attended hustings, as well as having heard Ed discuss a range of issues with party members, trade unionists and members of the public. What comes across is his ability to empathise with whomever he is speaking with or talking to. This is vital, not merely in intra-party terms, but because it is more important than ever for an aspiring Prime Minister to be able to communicate effectively with ordinary people.

This leads me to the second of Ed’s strengths. That is his belief that Labour cannot simply re-embrace "New Labour" if it is serious about winning the next general election. I am not one of those who disparage 13 years of Labour government. As a minister in the last government, I was, and remain, enormously proud of our huge achievements, not least of the way Gordon Brown prevented a deep and prolonged recession.

But that is not to say that Labour should not learn from our period in government. Moreover, we need to recalibrate our political philosophy in the new circumstances in which the country finds itself.

As to the lessons to be learned, although I do not claim to possess a definitive analysis, I think it is important for us to acknowledge that the circumstances which led us to war in Iraq resulted in a “loss of trust” amongst the electorate. As an MP who voted in favour of the war, it is important for me, and others like me, to acknowledge that the absence of weapons of mass destruction called into question the raison d’être for our intervention in Iraq. It is important for us to acknowledge this reality.

Over a period of 13 years, Labour gradually lost significant support amongst large sections of the coalition that brought us to power in 1997. We can all cite the 75p pension increase, the 10p tax debacle and the mistakes made over the Gurkhas. However, more damaging than any single issue was the fact that towards the end of our period in government Labour lacked an inspiring vision. Linked to this was the fact that Labour in government became increasingly technocratic; the impression was given that New Labour was more concerned about running the machinery of government rather than “changing” the country.

To ensure that Labour re-engages with the electorate, we now need to move beyond “New Labour”. Our vision of a new Britain must chime with people’s realities; build upon people’s innate sense of fairness and decency, and transcend the class divisions which have historically defined the Britain of the past and which, today, are growing ever wider.

Such a practical vision needs to have a firm moral base and has to be conveyed with passion, conviction and enthusiasm. Here Ed Miliband can come into his own. Of all the candidates, he is the one who is best able to relate to people and inspire them. Our message must be appealing to the “heart” as well as to the “head”.

A clear vision is also required to provide a framework within which our policies can be developed. But for those policies to be appropriate and effective they need to have been generated by a Labour movement which both reflects and understands today’s Britain. One of the features of New Labour was its “top down” approach towards policy development. This is no longer appropriate to meet the challenges we now face. There is a need to encourage, rather than stifle, debate in the party about our future direction; constructive dialogue is a prerequisite for winning power, rather than an indulgence to be frowned on. We should not, of course, allow ourselves to slip back into the kind of introverted navel-gazing which characterised Labour when we were last in opposition. We should, however, ensure that Labour becomes a party which prefigures the kind of country we wish to create – fair, open, tolerant and inclusive. Our mission must be to rejuvenate the party so that we are able to put forward a truly inspiring message at the next general election. Ed Miliband is the candidate to do this.

Wayne David is Labour MP for Caerphilly and shadow minister for Wales.

By Rob Macpherson

It's been a week since Yoosk launched their Labour leadership hustings asking people to put their questions to the five hopefuls before we put them in front of a camera and get the most popular ones answered.

The response has been very heartening as Labour members, trade union members and the public have already combined to ask over 100 questions to either the whole panel or individual candidates. Such an impressive level of engagement bodes well not just for our hustings but also for all five campaign teams who have a vital opportunity to let their candidate address questions that could otherwise go unanswered.

As our hustings race into their second week the onus is gradually turning from quantity to quality. We are still encouraging Yooskers to contribute their burning questions, but with only five questions for each individual candidate and an additional five for the whole panel making the final grade, we need your votes to ensure the cream rises to the top.

What have been the burning issues so far? Below are the six questions currently holding the top spot in each poll along with who asked them. You can see which other questions are also shortlisted by clicking on the name of each candidate. If you don't like them, or if your preferred question isn't in the top five, then simply log on and give it your vote to ensure it makes our final cut.

All Labour Candidates 

"Are you disappointed that this leadership contest has not given the public any sense of Labour's big idea for the future of the country?"
Submitted by: Martin.Fleet

David Miliband

"You've previously used personal anecdotes to suggest civil partnerships are "equality for gay people." Given the issues that they cause for transgendered people and for international recognition, could you confirm whether you would support full marriage equality?" @jaekay

Ed Miliband

"What did you learn from authoring the 2010 manifesto, what was good or bad about it and how would you do it differently if you were to get the chance to do it again?" @dominiccampbell

Ed Balls

"What's your biggest weakness and how do you intend to address it if you were to become leader?" @dominiccampbell

Andy Burnham

"Examples like Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon which is on the verge of being privatised, due to a decision you took as Health Sec, make me doubt as to whether you're the right candidate. Would you reverse this decision if you eventually became PM and bring all hospitals and NHS services back into true public ownership, run for the public, by the NHS?" @samgoodby

Diane Abbott

"In a recent hustings you have said of privatisation 'thus and no further'. Would you simply prevent future privatisation or go as far as to reclaim any services from the private sector?" RJMPolitics

It is a talented field, but I am the best candidate to be leader of the Labour Party. The party lost millions of voters and many members in the New Labour years. But I am the best candidate to rebuild and revitalise the party, because I have experience of the party at every level. I am the only candidate who has been a city councillor, the only candidate that has been a trade union official, and the only candidate who has served on the national executive of the Labour Party.

I'm proud of our achievements, but I know why we lost. From the north-west mill towns to the Medway towns, too many people on lower incomes who voted Labour in the past thought we were not always listening to their concerns on jobs, housing and fair migration.

The Financial Times reported this week that serious and established plans by Siemens to build a wind turbine industry in the UK, with the creation of hundreds of new jobs, are now being threatened by possible new coalition cuts to clean energy budgets. This is despite claims from David Cameron that he would lead the “greenest government ever”.

The FT reports:

Britain must improve its port infrastructure if planned investments in offshore wind power are to happen, the head of one of the biggest wind companies has warned.

Peter Loscher, chief executive of Siemens, told the Financial Times that a proposed £60m overhaul of some ports, intended to make them ready for the heavy duty wind turbines under development, was vital if the company was to proceed with building an £80m manufacturing facility that could create hundreds of “green jobs”.

“This is something that is definitely needed,” he said.

Left Foot Forward understands that Siemens have spoken up because they believe the Labour government’s pledge to provide £60 million for the port upgrades may be abandoned by Liberal Democrat business secretary Vince Cable, as part of his department’s cuts package.

This threat looms alongside news that research projects for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) face delays after Lib Dem climate change and energy secretary Chris Huhne said he is putting off any decision on which CCS research projects will go ahead in the UK.

In a separate FT article, the paper reported:

The first plants with CCS technology are likely to be delayed, as the government said on Tuesday it had not set a date for the initial winner of a competition it had launched to prove the technology to receive public funding.

A further consultation, due to finish by the end of 2011, will then take place on the running of a second competition to provide funding for a further three plants.

The CCS competition has already been running for four years and the former climate secretary, Ed Miliband, had said he would make a decision on the first demonstration project this year. Labour’s scheduled roll out for CCS aspired to see coal plants fully fitted with CCS by the early 2020s. Delays in this timetable – and the ongoing lack of regulation to ensure this timetable can be met – are arguably the biggest threat to the efforts to meet the cuts set out in the climate change act.

This bad news comes as Ministers also announced this week that the budget for electric cars will be cut by 80 per cent. This is despite strong and public advice from the government’s own Committee on Climate Change that this fund should be singled out for protection due its importance for the UK to be able to meet its climate targets. The committee has recommended that the UK needs to aim to have 1.7 million electric cars on British roads by 2020 to hit the target set out in the climate change act.

All of this cutting comes in addition to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) slashing £85m from its books, including important clean energy funds designed to help business reduce their emissions. Left Foot Forward reported on this a couple of weeks ago.

It is also in addition to the announcement that Labour’s proposed funding streams for a new Green Investment Bank, the sale of public assets and land, have been ruled out. The plan would have provided billions of pounds’ worth of green investment.

Ministers would appear to be ignoring the advice of their statutory advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, who have warned that without government support, a range of low-carbon technologies are in danger of being stuck in the so-called “valley of death”, whereby private sector investors will be unwilling to take a risk on the investment needed.

I am proud of what Labour achieved in Government and of the part I played. I have the most ministerial experience of all the leadership candidates and have held some of the most difficult jobs in politics. I was a minister at the Home Office and the Department of Health and joined the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, before being appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport and then Health Secretary.

Together we face two big challenges. We need to renew both our ideas and our organisation. And they depend on each other: organisation without ideas is sterile, ideas without organisation is futile.

This must be a change election for Labour: we must change to win. I will build on the great things we achieved in Government. But we should be under no illusions: to return to power we must put the era of New Labour behind us.

By Lisa Nandy MP

The last week in parliament before the summer recess brought mixed feelings. The rush to push the academies bill through the commons continued to cause a storm, though many MPs were demob happy at the prospect of having a bit of time off. It’s been quite a long slog, especially for new MPs, who have had to find the stamina for the selection process, the election campaign, and then a bewildering and busy first term.

The confusion over "Building Schools for the Future" continues. In Wigan we are still waiting to hear why our projects, which had reached financial close, have been cancelled. On Wednesday an unrepentant Michael Gove told the Education Select Committee (of which I am a member) that he thought the decision to cancel projects on a purely financial basis was fair and seemed not to accept that the individual decisions, from the outside at least, still seem arbitrary and potentially discriminatory. The only slightly cheering thing was the sight of Mr Gove being pursued around London by the Daily Mirror chicken, who is challenging him to fulfill his promise to go to Sandwell and apologise to the children who will not now have the new school they were promised. I hope the chicken will have more success than we have in the house.

It feels like the defiance on show from the education secretary is being replicated across government. I watched a clearly irritated Nick Clegg being repeatedly skewered at a raucous Deputy Prime Minister’s Question Time on Tuesday - inevitable after his disastrous performance at last week‘s PMQs. My fear is that as this right wing coalition pursues its aggressive and ideological agenda and the Liberal Democrats get further into the mire, they, like their Tory counterparts, will become increasingly defiant and irrational. The challenge for Labour is to ensure that we fight them hard, but fairly. An ideological battle reminiscent of the 1980s, where nobody seemed to speak up for the majority, would be a disaster.

Many of the commentators, and particularly those in the right wing press, seem to think the best way to avoid this is to opt for David Miliband as party leader, who they argue is less left wing than his brother. As someone who is proud to be on the left of the Labour Party I find this attempt to characterise Ed Miliband as a ‘dangerous leftie’ quite bizarre. It simply cannot be the case that a candidate who argues for more house building, fairer treatment of immigrant children and a restored sense of pride in our relationship with the union movement is likely to lose us support amongst the wider public. In Wigan during the election people looked to us for leadership on better living standards for people on low incomes, more housing and a sense of fair play. I suspect in this first test of grassroots opinion since the deputy leadership contest the Labour Party membership will prove that they also think those things are the key to our future success, not a liability.

Following the embarrassingly empty green paper published this week, titled “Financing a private sector recovery” without offering any ideas on how to finance it, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King has launched a blistering attack on Britain’s major banks. As Rachel Reeves MP said on Left Foot Forward, the coalition green paper was kind to banks but offered absolutely nothing to businesses.

Now King has told the Treasury select committee that claims by banks that corporate lending had declined because of a lack of demand were “not an adequate response” adding that their treatment of business clients was creating a “heart breaking” situation for Britain’s SMEs.

In a further criticism of the banks, he told MPs on the Committee – in the same hearing in which he distanced himself from Nick Clegg’s discredited claims on when he u-turned over the deficit – that it is “a lot harder to build a business than it is to sit in London and trade away”.

It has long been obvious that the lending crisis is risking Britain’s economic recovery. The taxpayers’ estimated £1 trillion bailout was intended to press banks to resume lending to businesses. Instead, many have used it to buttress their capital positions and increase bonus payments by £10 billion since the crisis, according to the BoE.

Even the green paper admitted that this £10bn in extra bonuses since the crisis could have, as the BoE stated in its June Financial Stability Report, sustained £50bn in new lending. Since the 2008 crisis, lending figures have been positive in only three months, and fell in May by £2.3bn.

The banks have consistently claimed that there is no demand, while business groups say they are not applying for loans because they expect to be rejected and interest rates are too high. The result of this stand-off is that the businesses we need to create the growth that will take Britain back to prosperity are being allowed to stagnate.

However, the latest remarks by Governor King blow the banks’ contention that there is no demand completely out of the water. The financial crisis should have led to a rethink on how the UK does business and King has consistently, and rightly, argued that the UK economy should rely less on consumption and public spending and more on manufacturing, investment and exports.

The coalition – although many suspect this is the work of George Osborne rather than Vince Cable – is, as the green paper demonstrated, offering no new ideas on how to increase these economic sectors.

As the Chancellor announced in his first Mansion House speech, the Governor of the BoE will also become the chief economic ‘watchdog’ over the City when the Financial Services Authority falls under the remit of the Bank.

He is proving to be a constructive critic, especially compared with the supposedly independent Office for Budget Responsibility, which is so independent that its skeleton staff is reliant on Treasury media officers and policy officers. One wonders what Osborne’s reaction will be to King’s latest piece of independent thinking.

By Tom Callow

In his fortnightly PR Week column back in June, Alex Hilton argued that Labour’s communications strategy was failing in getting across its messages about the danger of cutting too much too soon. Whilst a fragmented communications strategy may not have been the ultimate factor in our defeat, I do not think we are being anywhere near as effective as we need to be in communicating both ideology and policy.

Alex Hilton’s central example was that Labour "allowed its reputation for economic competence to be stripped". Rather than a factually accurate common public opinion that the Labour government oversaw the country's longest period of sustained economic growth, public perception shifted to a warped view of reality in which Labour – and specifically Gordon Brown – had been the trigger for the entirety of the global economic downturn.

Given the economic policy that has been wheeled out by the Tories in recent times, it is ludicrous to think this is a credible message, but their manipulation of history has been successful and much of the public now sees Labour as economically irresponsible. We should not be naïve in thinking that the Tory PR machine will somehow be turned down a notch now that the Tories are in power. If anything, it will be cranked up.

Cameron has at his side a former editor of the one of the largest-selling English-language newspapers in the world, the man who thought up the unforgettable ‘New Labour, New Danger’ campaign and was the architect of the Tories’ re-brand – as well as being married to Google’s VP for global communications and public affairs. Despite Labour’s best efforts, the Tories have, in the public’s eyes, moved away from the ‘nasty party’ image of the last decade.

In this time of transition, when we are still in the process of deciding on our next leader, when some are still licking election wounds, whilst others are feeling deflated and others conversely overconfident, Labour risks letting the Tories create a monologue with the public where their cuts agenda becomes the acceptable and only message. Indeed, I fear that they are already turning another fallacy – that stopping the Building Schools for the Future programme was essential due to Labour’s mismanagement – into the default opinion amongst the public.

The next victim of Tory spin will be the proposed bill on electoral reform, where we risk another defeat in the communications battle. Despite legitimate arguments about constituency boundary changes and more pressing issues such as an estimated 3.5 million people not being registered to vote, Labour is being portrayed by the government as opposing democracy and of hypocrisy, given its election commitment to voting reform. Rather than the Tories’ blatant greed in redrawing the boundaries according to where their own support lies, it is Labour that is being accused of – and more importantly perceived as – being opportunistic.

In April, I was fortunate enough to sit through Gordon Brown’s speech at the Royal Institution in which he lucidly explained the factors that led to the recession, how it was global and most importantly why Labour was right in its response. I felt sure that had any member of the public been in that room, all the fog of misdirection and ignorance would have cleared and they would have left completely enlightened. But at this closed-door, invitation-only event, Gordon was preaching to the converted.

It isn’t enough just to be right. We have to explain why we are right and why the coalition – a term which, no doubt due to its connotations of collaboration, is popular with the public – is wrong. We must be proactive, positive and proud in our communication with the public if we are to have any hope of success in taking on the Tories.

In YouGov’s Labour leadership survey, the headline figure of which saw David Miliband lead his brother Ed 54 per cent to 46 per cent (see my earlier post here), the Labour Party members and trade unionists polled were asked whether they thought a series of Labour figures – none of whom are standing for the leadership – are an asset or a liability.

Of the seven – Gordon Brown, Yvette Cooper, Jon Cruddas, Alistair Darling, Harriet Harman, Alan Johnson, Peter Mandelson and Dennis Skinner – only one suffered the ignominy of a negative net rating; that man is Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, until May the Lord President of the Council, First Secretary of State, and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Sixty one per cent of both trade unionists and Labour Party members think him a liability, against only 25 per cent of Labour Party affiliated trade unionists and 29 per cent of Labour Party members who think him an asset – a result, no doubt, of his perceived ‘treachery’ in publishing his memoirs so soon after Labour’s defeat and in the middle of the leadership contest.

Tony Blair famously once said the New Labour project would only be complete when the party “learned to love Peter Mandelson”, which it did indeed seem to do from last September’s conference speech through to the general election; now, however, from being loved he’s turned into a liability. C’est la vie!