By the small hours of Friday 10th September, a historic moment in British politics may have occurred. Because of the sudden ending of the unitary dream for Norwich a couple of months back, there are local elections this year on Thursday 9th September in Norwich.

Labour went into these elections with just a two seat advantage over the Greens. With the LibDems unlikely to flourish in these elections (given their depressed national poll ratings) and the Tories the 4th Party in Norwich, the Greens could potentially become the largest party on the Council even without gaining much from Labour. And, obviously, the arithmetic is such that (say) just one Green gain from Labour, and one Green gain from the LibDems, if the Greens hold all their other seats and Labour do not gain elsewhere, would leave the Greens the largest Party, by the week’s ending.

If the Green Party do manage to equal or overtake Labour at these elections, and become the largest (or equal-largest) party on the Council, this would be an event without precedent in British politics, genuinely deserving the overly-used epithet, ‘historic’.

Of course, it wouldn’t necessarily result in a Green-run Council; as we saw in Westminster after this year’s General Election, what happened next would depend upon how the Parties interpreted and decided to react to the election results. But simply by virtue of becoming the largest Party on a Principal Authority Council for the first time ever, the Green Party would be sending a powerful message about the growing pluralism of British politics – and, obviously, about the continuing electoral flourishing of the Green Party.

The Green Party Conference this year begins on … Friday 10th September. An extraordinary coincidence which may work to the advantage of the party. Caroline Lucas gives her first ever Leader’s speech as the party’s (first ever) MP, at 1.40 that afternoon. What a bonus it would be for her if, as well as that historic distinction, a second one were to be added in by events in Norwich: she may be able to welcome to the Conference we Norwich Green Councillors who are part of the first ever Green Party Group to form a plurality on their Council.

The Green Party with representation at last at Westminster and perhaps soon within striking distance of power on its own account in local government for the very first time, will certainly give the LibDem leadership and the Labour leadership contenders something to think about, at their upcoming Party Conferences.

In England, the way we care for older and disabled people is a broken system. And things are about to get much worse.

Last week I wrote to every Lib Dem MP asking them to think long and hard about whether their voters support the coalition plans to break up the NHS. I believe that funding of care and support has the potential to be just as divisive.

The stakes are high. Funding of care and support is the most urgent of all social policy issues we face as a society.

The key policy issue under debate is that of voluntary versus compulsory payments. The Conservatives have characterised compulsory payments as a 'death tax'. They may in time come to regret that language.

Mary Riddell writing in the Telegraph has already told David Cameron to swallow his pride saying, ‘The question is how to spare people indignity, unhappiness and discomfort as they grow old, and the answer is obvious. Mr Cameron should swallow his pride and learn to love the death tax'.

The political row over the ‘death tax' misses the point. A compulsory tax on vulnerability already exists.

My proposals for a National Care Service would provide a comprehensive system of care and support, free at the point of use.

It would be funded collectively by a 10 per cent levy on estates. Everyone would contribute. Contributions could be capped at £50,000 per couple, but I have recently proposed a major reform of property tax, which changes the context. A new land value tax would replace stamp duty, council tax and inheritance tax. This would clear the way to build public support for an uncapped 10 per cent care levy.

The tax on vulnerability that can wipe out everything that people have worked for would be transformed into a fair, predictable, progressive care levy. It would give all people peace of mind that 90 per cent of what they have worked for will be protected.

The Conservatives put forward an alternative proposal - a voluntary scheme that would cover the costs of residential care in return for a payment of £8,000. The proposal was called ‘unworkable, unfair and unaffordable' by the Lib Dems and did not survive coalition negotiations.

Although it has since been dramatically ripped up, the coalition agreement did not hold many surprises on health. On social care however, we saw the Tory manifesto commitment to an £8,000 voluntary insurance scheme swapped for the Lib Dem commitment to an independent commission on funding.

People as well as policies must have been discussed. The former Lib Dem health spokesman, Norman Lamb, is notable by his absence.

As the architect of the cross-party talks that ended in acrimony with the Conservatives producing tombstone posters, Lamb was well versed in the political and policy issues surrounding social care funding. I got the impression that Lamb favoured a compulsory system, but was told by the party hierarchy to be lukewarm when the white paper was published.

By the time of the election, the Lib Dems were refusing to be drawn on funding for care and support, but Lamb was clear in his views on the Tory proposals, saying ‘This is basically a ‘poll tax' and many people on modest means will be wondering how the Tories could think it's fair that they should pay the same amount for care as multimillionaires'.

The coalition hope that the commission can find a middle-ground solution. But momentum for a National Care Service had built to such a level before the election that the public, media and care sector will demand a truly sustainable, progressive solution. I do not believe that a voluntary approach can offer that.

In a final bid for consensus before publishing the white paper Building a National Care Service, I called an emergency summit in February this year.

The summit was attended by local and national politicians, charities and care providers. It was boycotted by the then shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, who refused to attend unless the compulsory option was taken off the table. Lamb wrote to Lansley, urging him to take part in the talks.

In a statement produced by delegates at the end of that day, they backed a comprehensive, compulsory system for the funding of care and support.

Considering the history, it is disappointing but perhaps not so surprising that Lansley is thought to have refused to work with Norman Lamb.

Lamb's successor as Lib Dem health spokesperson, Paul Burstow, also criticised the Tory insurance scheme for failing to cover the costs of care in the home. It was Paul Burstow who forced Lansley's hand on the commission.

We learned on 20 July that the care commission, chaired by Andrew Dilnot, would be free to consider all options, including compulsory payments - the very issue on which Lansley boycotted earlier talks.

There was not much Lansley could do about this because Burstow had been telling the media for weeks that the commission would look at all options. He told the Telegraph on 5 June that a compulsory option would be considered.

While Burstow defended the decision, rightly saying that the commission must not be constrained, No 10 were falling over themselves to confirm that the prime minister and Lansley still opposed the ‘death tax' and that although the commission would ‘make recommendations', final decisions would rest with ministers.

Burstow was forced to backtrack, telling local government social care leaders, ‘The prime minister has made his views very clear both before the election and in the past 24 hours that his view about the death tax is unchanged.'

It's a pretty shabby way to launch an independent commission - give it free rein to consider all options but publicly announce the answer you won't accept.
The commission chair, Andrew Dilnot was forced to speak up against allegations that he is a government stooge, saying, ‘It was made clear to me that we were an independent commission... we don't feel constrained', and adding that he would be surprised and disappointed if the government rejected realistic recommendations.

Dilnot was part of the 1997 Joseph Rowntree Foundation group that suggested the establishment of a national care insurance scheme, funded through compulsory contributions, so that social care would be free at the point of use.

I believe that many Lib Dems already recognise the benefits of a comprehensive, compulsory solution. They must use their position in government to make the case for it and reassure the commission that all recommendations will be considered.

I have welcomed the commission and will support it in any way I can. The issue of how to fund care and support is too important to be derailed by party political interests. But we owe it to our older and disabled people to secure a fair, sustainable solution that will give peace of mind to all and allow us to celebrate our ageing society.

Photo: Paul Walker 2008

The Times has come out for David Miliband as Labour leader, continuing a pretty good run of predictable predictions in my Left Foot Forward endorsement guide. As it is behind The Times paywall, the support may not reach much beyond the print readership, particularly since the endorsement repeats the newspaper's complaint that MiliD is lurching further centre-leftwards than the Times thinks sensible. It has been a rare media voice in raising the spectre of "Red David" in this leadership campaign:


David Miliband is not a perfect answer to Labour’s needs. His campaign has also flirted with policies on taxation that he will find have little resonance outside the party.


Evidence please?

An earlier "no left turn" editorial identified The Times' concerns about the MiliD manifesto as "a new mansion tax and doubling the bank levy". (The Times argued of these proposals, along with a high pay commission and employee representation on boards, that "in certain circumstances, Mr Miliband might make the case for one of those policies in isolation. But taken together, and stated as his priorities, they prompt concern about the direction of his campaign").

May I suggest the Times settle the argument of whether these proposals have "little resonance outside the party" by conducting an opinion poll to test whether the intutions of the leader writer about public opinion are shared by the public themselves.

The Daily Mail found Vince Cable's more expansive mansion tax (starting at £1 million) had 57% support with 27% against, as Left Foot Forward reminded us recently. The Miliband mansion tax is more modest, beginning at £2 million. It is less popular with newspapers than voters.

Whether it would be right or wrong as an economic policy idea, The Times would also find (especially during the next bonus round) that doubling the bank levy would resonate with a lot of non-Labour people, particularly in the "angry middle" whose concerns are voiced by the Daily Mail.

This blog has already looked at tax myths of the imaginary centre over starting a 50p top rate at a lower six-figure salary than £150,000. David Miliband has not flirted with this proposal. (But he will not scrap the current 50p rate in this Parliament; but nor, probably, will the Coalition, not least because two-thirds of the public support it).

Nor, in fact, has Ed Miliband proposed a lower starting rate, instead proposing to keep the current rate. So The Times says "His ideological relish for higher taxes is one thing; his belief that they will be popular quite another". I do not feel confident that the editorial writer knows what new taxes the younger Miliband has or has not proposed.

***

PS: The Times regards the Labour electoral college as "byzantine" - though it remains still very surprising for an editorial in a paper of record to get the most basic and easily checkable facts about it wrong.


It is hard to divine what is happening in Labour’s byzantine electoral system, in which the members have 40 per cent of the vote, the unions 30 per cent and the MPs 30 per cent, and second preferences will be crucial.


(Each section of the college has one-third of the vote: the editorial writer is probably misremembering the initial 40-30-30 electoral college created at the turbulent special conference in 1980 - where it was the unions who had 40%!)

In an address to the Fabian Society this morning, Ed Balls unveiled new research which attacks Michael Gove’s academies programme for being elitist.

In this latest attack, Mr Balls argues it will perpetuate advantage instead of tackling disadvantage. This may give the education secretary genuine cause for thought, as he has previously expressed a desire to reverse the situation whereby “rich thick kids do better than poor clever children when they arrive at school [and] the situation as they go through gets worse”.

Compared to the 64 Labour-chosen schools which will open as Academies this term, the 32 opening under the Coalition programme are significantly better-off. They all have an ‘outstanding’ rating from Ofsted. In addition, they:

• Have half the proportion of pupils with special educational needs – 6.9 per cent compared to 13.8 per cent;

• Achieved GCSE results well above the national average (of 50.7 per cent) with 72.6 per cent getting five A*-C grades including English and maths – compared to 30.8 per cent in the schools being replaced by Labour Academies;

• Are on average located in areas with significantly fewer deprived children than schools being replaced by Labour Academies. Based on the 2007 Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index, the new Academies are located in areas with average child deprivation of 17 per cent compared to 27 per cent for schools being replaced by Labour Academies.

Mr Balls said:

“The Tory-Lib Dem government’s policies fail the fairness test. This analysis of Academies opening this term highlights the stark contrast between a progressive education policy under Labour to tackle disadvantage and under-performance and Michael Gove’s elitist policy which is simply about rewarding schools that are already doing well.

“Through this new Tory Academies policy, the Education Secretary is giving high-performing schools in less deprived areas and with fewer children with special educational needs more funding at the expense of schools which need it most. That cannot be fair by any definition of the word.

“Schools in more deprived areas with more children with special educational needs and lower results will be left with fewer resources than they need to tackle the barriers to learning their children face.

“That’s because these new Academies will take an equal share of the funding local authorities have to provide a range of services for children with special educational needs, behavioural problems and things like school food and transport, rather than a fair share based on the needs of the children in that school.”

The shadow education secretary tacked on several other criticisms to his critique of the Coalition Academies’ lack of progressive credentials. He responded to reports that Gove is to drop the requirement for schools to report all recorded incidences of bullying, saying:

“When I was Schools Secretary I announced this change to ensure all schools recorded incidents of bullying between pupils and against school staff too. It was something anti-bullying campaigners had been calling for so problems can be spotted and tackled early on. It’s a really backwards step for Michael Gove to scrap it and he should think again.”

He also lambasted the new Coalition Academies because they ”simply opt out and go it alone with no role for local authorities.”

Balls has persistently been a thorn in Gove’s side. Most noteworthy has been his haranguing of the Education Secretary for the calamitous mishandling of the slashing of Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme, and for railroading the Academies Bill through parliament, when far fewer than the claimed 700 schools applied for Academy status.

This has had results. On Saturday, Left Foot Forward reported the defection to Labour of a senior Tory Councilor, who had been incensed by Gove’s cuts. Elaine Costigan complained that “This community has been treated with utter contempt by the government over the slashing of the school building programme.” The Conservatives are said to be “totally shocked” at the development.

Damian Green is to give his first speech as immigration minister later today, in which he will claim that the number of foreign students entering the UK is ‘unsustainable’, drawing on new Home Office research.

The same research has also suggested that it will be very difficult for the Government to meet its target of reducing net immigration to under 100,000 a year. It is certainly the case that foreign student numbers have been growing.

The most recent statistics show that the number of student visas issued in the second quarter of 2010 was up 23 per cent on the second quarter of 2009. Student migration flows from outside the EU are at historically high levels – more than 350,000 student visas were issued in the year to June 2010.

This increase has come despite significant reforms to the student visa regime made by the last government, which included crackdowns on abuse of the system through so-called ‘bogus colleges’. The weakened pound has made the UK an attractive destination for foreign students – reducing fees and the cost of living in the UK in real terms.

British further and higher education institutions have also been actively recruiting more non-EU students (who pay high fees) – many depend on fee income from foreign students to subsidise facilities for UK students, and this dependence will only increase as UK education funding is cut. Increased foreign student numbers are, in some senses at least, good news for the UK – education has become, in effect, a successful export sector.

It seems that we must ask: what is the Government worried about? There seem to be two main concerns. The first is entirely legitimate – it seems likely that some abuse of the student visa regime continues, despite the measures taken by the previous government. This may be a particular issue with visas issued for courses below degree level (which account for up to half the total), and with visas issued to smaller colleges and institutions.

It seems sensible at least to make more distinctions in the visa rules between more and less trusted institutions, and perhaps between courses at different levels.

Their other concern is about total net immigration to the UK. Rising student numbers is one of a number of factors making it harder for the Home Office to meet its target of reducing net immigration to ‘tens, rather than hundreds, of thousands’ a year. Recent rises in net immigration (driven in large part by declining British emigration) took net immigration to 196,000 in 2009, meaning that the Government needs to reduce net immigration by around 50 per cent in order to meet its target.

Although rising foreign student numbers increase net migration figures in the short term, most student migration is temporary, so it’s not clear what the impact is in the longer term. For example, last year’s rising student immigration will presumably be followed by rising emigration in two or three years time as students finish their courses and return home, or move elsewhere to work. But Home Office research has shown that around 20 per cent of students who entered the UK in 2004 were still here in 2009 – suggesting that they might settle and contribute to rising net immigration and population.

The relatively low proportion of foreign students settling in the UK means that it will be difficult for the Government to reduce net migration in the medium-long term by reducing the number of student visas that it issues. If the Government halved non-EU student visas to 180,000 a year, it would reduce net immigration for a year or two (as fewer new students arrived but larger cohorts from previous years continued to leave), but the Home Office research suggests that it would only reduce net migration by around 35,000 in the longer term (because 145,000 of the 180,000 students denied entry to the UK would have returned home within 5 years anyway). 

So, a massive reduction in foreign student numbers would get the Government only a third of the way to its target of reducing net immigration from almost 200,000 to under 100,000.

Research suggests that only around 40 per cent of non-EU migrants who came to the UK to work in 2004 were still in the country in 2009. This means that the Government’s cap on skilled work immigration through Tiers 1 and 2 of the Points-Based System (PBS) will also have a limited impact on net immigration in the medium-long term. If the Government used the cap to make a huge cut in the number of PBS Tier 1 and 2 visas issued and halved numbers (including dependents) from around 100,000 to 50,000, the Home Office research suggests that this would reduce net immigration to the UK by only around 20,000 in the medium-long term.

So, the new Home Office research suggests that even drastic policies like halving the number of student and PBS Tiers 1/ 2 visas issued each year would get the Government only around halfway to its target of reducing net immigration from almost 200,000 to under 100,000 a year. Policies like these would have major implications for the UK – reduced economic growth, more pressure on the fiscal position, under-staffed public services, and colleges and universities closing. Many people in the UK want to see immigration reduced, but they also need to understand what the consequences of the policies that this requires would be.

Damian Green may be at a loss with his policy of reducing net immigration to under 100,000. Both of the Miliband brothers seem to be on the right track on this issue. They seem to have accepted that immigration is more often a symptom than a cause of problems in the UK. They are also agreed that Labour’s pre-election immigration policy framework was more-or-less the right one, and that in order to tackle immigration as a political issue, Labour needs to engage with wider questions like housing, inequality and labour market regulation. Damian Green should take note.

The Commons comes back today to begin a debate on constitutional proposals that will reshape political life in Britain in a way not seen for decades. The Queen loses her power to dissolve parliament as fixed terms come in. British citizens will lose nearly a tenth of their elected representatives. And the way we elect MPs will change if the Alternative Vote system is adopted after a referendum.

The decision to devote the new session of parliament to constitutional politics will divide all parties as MPs and the public come to terms with the full implications of these proposals. ‘Whatever is, is right' wrote the poet Alexander Pope as he defined early Toryism 300 years ago. Now under David Cameron, the Conservatives have become the party of unconvinced and unconvincing upheaval as the prime minister embarks on a political road full of pitfalls. His Commons majority is uncertain. A plebiscite next year risks becoming a vote on the popularity of the government's cuts policy rather than a calm, rational decision on the merits of the constitutional proposals.

After the ConDem government coalition we are likely to see a ConLab parliamentary coalition, as MPs cannot be controlled by whips on what are traditionally free votes on these matters. Cameron's constitutional moment follows Labour's piecemeal reforms. These failed to satisfy the constitutional reform purists while simultaneously opening up new areas of contestation. Thus we have messes like the decision of a Scottish minister to release a convicted terrorist whom Robin Cook, as foreign secretary engaging his word on behalf of the United Kingdom, had pledged would see out his days in a UK prison.

We have the curious sight of the unelected House of Lords with more members than the lower House. England has no intermediary level of representative legislatures such as exists in Commonwealth countries like Canada or Australia, or in the US where there are four times as many elected officials in relation to the population than Britain.

We have a fused executive and legislature. Reducing the number of MPs will tilt the balance to the executive. The idea of equalising all MPs' seats into neat little squares with an identical number of voters appears reasonable. But like Chesterton's rolling English road with its swerves and contours - so different from the straight lines used by English imperialists to draw boundaries in Africa - the British constituency is a result of deep localisms that are indeed eccentric and defy rational mathematics but which make sense.

The real worry is that in many constituencies including my own of Rotherham more than one in ten citizens is not registered to vote. The bill will enshrine this disenfranchisement as it allows no time and affords no resources to get our citizens registered to vote in the new constituencies. Nor does the bill allow time for consultation with local people about the new boundaries. This will cause anger and fester for years to come.

On AV the logic is even more curious. AV was spatchcocked into the Labour manifesto at the last minute by Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson. It has never been debated, let alone agreed by the Labour party, whether grassroots activists, unions, or MPs. It was overwhelmingly rejected by voters who instead gave their confidence to Conservative candidates who stood on an anti-AV platform. The Lib Dems who wanted more radical electoral reform lost seats for the first time in fifty years.

Having supported Mr Cameron and said ‘no' to AV in May 2010 voters are now being told by Mr Cameron they can say Yes in May 2011. Nor is it clear if the voting system is liberal AV where voters are free to vote for just one or two candidate or compulsory AV where a vote in invalid unless cast for all candidates including the BNP, UKIP and other extremist or fringe parties.

The referendum is proposed for the same day as the important Scottish, Welsh and big city elections next May. Parliament should reject this. A sound principle in countries where referendums are more common is that they are separate independent consultations and not mixed up with elections of individual candidates to run Scotland, Wales, Manchester or Bristol. It would be bizarre to be campaigning in the morning for the Tories or Labour to run a city and then in the afternoon there is a musical chairs as bitter foes make common cause for or against AV.

The proposition that AV is progressive defies all rational examination; AV is actually worse than a simple majority election. It allows BNP supporters to have a say over who becomes an MP even if they cannot muster much support for their own obnoxious politics. It allows the ousting of MPs targeted by the media as hate figures in the manner of Tony Benn in the 1980s. AV in Australia has provided no stability. AV in the most recent election in Australia has given Labour seven per cent fewer votes than the opposition but the same number of seats. Fair? Democratic? AV has kept Australian Labour out of power while the British system has allowed Labour to hold power for 30 years since 1945, just five fewer than the Tories.

The one merit in these proposals is they will bring the Commons back to life. I will happily go into the lobby, with or without my whips' support, with Conservative and even Lib Dem MPs ready to defeat this Democracy Reduction bill or so amend it to make it conform with democratic rules as commonly understood.

Every MP can play a part in this crucial debate about the future of our democracy when these constitutional measures being their passage through parliament today.

Photo: UK Parliament 2010

The Ed Miliband campaign says they expect to win the Labour leadership on second preference votes. The Guardian reports the claim that their canvassing returns show supporters of Diane Abbott, Andy Burnham and Ed Balls prefer Ed to David Miliband by three to one.

That rather falls into the "they would say that, wouldn't they" category of electioneering, along with the David Miliband camp's insistence that they are increasingly confident of winning, and also think that David can take at least as many second preference votes as Ed.

But it is a good moment to assess the evidence for the widely discussed possibility that second preferences will decide the election. The answer is that this is a strong possibility that they will if the race is within five points on the first round, but that a candidate with a lead closer to double-figures is likely to hold onto it (unless second preferences really do break as strongly as 3:1 against them).

In one sense, second preferences will decide the result: second (and later) preferences will be counted if no candidate has 50% on the first round. That is pretty certain to be the case.

But for transfers to be decisive - and to change the winner - two other conditions need to be met. For candidate B (let us call him "Ed") is to win a large enough share of second preferences to close and overturn the first preferences lead of candidate A (let's say "David"), we would need to know two things:

What is the first preference share and lead?
(i) The race has to be close enough for the second preferences to make the difference. (A candidate ahead 49% to 31% is going to win comfortably - their rival would need more than 95% of other voters to prefer them).

How do the second preferences divide?
(ii) The first round leader must get fewer second preferences than their rival. If they can get an even split (or better), even the smallest lead will be held.

So, how close does would the race need to be on the first round for preference voting to change the winner?

Let's project some possible results, using an assumption that the leading two candidates share two-thirds of the vote on the first round - while three other candidates share one-third. (The Miliband versus non-Miliband split was 70:30 among party members and 60:40 among trade unionists in the YouGov poll at the end of July. Of course,
similar assumptions can be used to compare any run-off pairing, as long as you have a view about the first round result, and the share of transfers, as we don't have any run-off polling for other combinations).

To simplify, let's just look at who wins the party members' section. The winner will probably need to do this (though it ain't necessarily so, as Friday's Left Foot Forward post on split college decisions set out).

The YouGov poll showed that Abbott/Balls/Burnham (ABB) voters in late July divided 51% for Ed Miliband, 33% for David Miliband, 9% neither. (6% unsure at that stage). That would give a 55-35 split, with one in ten ballots not counting, and valid second/later preferences divide pretty much 3:2

If two Milibands did end up ahead, those ABB votes would split it 18% to Ed Miliband, 12% to David Miliband, with 3.33% of members' votes leaving the contest by not having a preference.

Let us make that one of four scenarios to how first and second preferences could interact if a third of the vote was up for grabs.

* If second preferences divide 50:50 between the leading candidates, the first round winner will win, as of course is also true if the leader wins the greater share.

* If second preferences divide 3:2 for Ed, David Miliband would need a 6%+ lead on first preferences. (This is shown by MiliD being ahead 38-32 among party members in the July YouGov poll, and ending up 50-50 in the members' section).

* If second preferences divide less strongly 55:45 for Ed, David Miliband would need a 3%+ lead on first preferences to stay ahead. Now a 35%-32% lead could be enough.

* If second preferences were to divide 3:1 for Ed - as his campaign suggests - then if one-third of voters did not vote for a Miliband first, he would pick up 22.5% of the vote on second preferences and David just 7.5%. (I am again writing off 3% of ballots). So David Miliband would now need a 15%+ lead on first preferences to retain a lead, for example 41% to 26% to avoid being overtaken.

My own view is that the YouGov poll remains the best evidence we have - so that the best rule of thumb is that a 5-6% lead on first preferences could well be necessary for David Miliband to stay ahead among party members.

Of course, the combined first round share of the top two could be higher or lower than 67%. If the leading candidates have more of the first round votes, second preferences matter less. If it is a lower share, they are more important. For example, if the Milibands already shared 75% of the first round, a 3:2 division would close the gap by 4.5 points (rather than 6), a 55:45 split by just 2 points (not 3), and a 3:1 split by 11 points (not 15%), again assuming 10% of the remaining votes don't transfer. (By contrast, if their joint first round share fell as low to 50%, even a 3:2 split of second preferences would eat up a 9% lead).

(A major reason transfers were so important in the 2007 deputy leadership was that the even six-way race meant the final two candidates only shared 37% of first round votes, with even the top three candidates having a combined share under 57%. Harman won on transfers in the final round - with a roughly 3:2 split (Cruddas' 30% splitting 17:13), in fact, Harman and Alan Johnson picked up almost exactly a 50:50 share of transfers overall, with Harman leading Johnson by 0.77% on the first round and 0.87% in the end, both overtaking Cruddas who began in front).


***

Will the party members vote prove decisive? It will do so if the other sections are evenly balanced.

A reasonable holding guesstimate of the Parliamentary section would be 55% to 45% for David Miliband, a lead of around 27 MPs or MEPs (149 to 122) if everybody's vote were still to count in the final round.

LabourList's running totals suggest declared first preference support for the Milibands is already 40% (David) to 29% (Ed) of this section, with their latest totals showing 109-79 (including MEPs), so an even division of the remaining 80+ Parliamentarians would see David ahead by 28-30 MP/MEPs (or 10-11%). A better estimate will be possible if large numbers of MP second preferences are placed on the record: these are the second preferences with the most electoral college weight! (That Tom Watson and Geoffrey Robinson have different second preferences shows that even MPs closest to Ed Balls will not act as a bloc; there are slightly more Andy Burnham than Diane Abbott votes, though the assumption that these MPs will transfer to David Miliband depends on unpacking political and north-west regional loyalties among Burnham nominees).

The likelihood of a David Miliband lead in the Parliamentary section makes a victory for Ed Miliband in the affiliates section necessary to put him in contention.

In July's poll, David Miliband did better in this section than among party members. But that was prior to any campaigning activity from the unions themselves. The David Miliband campaign will be hoping that the support of both The Mirror and Jon Cruddas (who was almost twice as popular among affiliated voters as among individual party members in 2007) helps to win votes in this section. But this is also where the Mandelson-Blair interventions are more likely to have done more harm than good to him campaign. And the second preference factor is likely to help Ed more than David in this section. Peter Kellner's health warning about differential turnout is important - 1994 turnout was 19% - with the frontrunner's higher name recognition likely to help most among those least likely to vote and so not following the contest.

I think Ed Miliband is likely to win this third section. If he could do so by a margin which offset any Parliamentary deficit, then the overall leadership would look very much a neck-and-neck race. That would also be one where the preference of party members' - whoever they choose - would (happily) definitely prevail.

Alcohol played its part in securing a lively discussion at my GC last week. No, I'm not talking about the argument in the pub after the meeting - a well-informed and thoughtful discussion, led by our CLP chair (in her day job she's a manager for a local alcohol service) took centre-stage in the meeting itself.

The discussion was sparked by the Scottish government's decision to bring forward proposals to set a minimum unit price for alcohol. But as a Greater Manchester constituency, we'd also been struck by the recent report from the North West Public Health Observatory whose Local Alcohol Profiles for England showed the exceptionally high rate of alcohol-related problems that exist in the north west. Manchester and Salford, both local authorities coping with high levels of poverty and deprivation, were the worst affected. But even in our own relatively prosperous borough of Trafford, admissions to hospital attributable to alcohol are significantly worse than the England average.

Everyone knows the problems caused by alcohol misuse: the harm to health, the contribution it makes to crime and disorder, the misery and havoc it brings to individuals, families and communities. New figures from the British Beer and Pub Association show a reduction in overall alcohol consumption in the UK in 2009, and that's welcome, but no-one would deny the significant health and social problems that result from alcohol misuse.

So further action's clearly needed, and the Scottish Government's plan to introduce unit pricing has been welcomed by medical experts, including Scotland's chief medical officer and the BMA. Yet prior to the general election, Labour refused to introduce minimum pricing, claiming reluctance to penalise responsible drinkers, and these new proposals from the SNP government have again been rejected by Labour MSPs as a ‘tax on the poor'. Industry voices meanwhile, from the Scotch Whisky Association through major supermarkets to the hospitality sector, have long expressed concerns that such measures will have only a marginal effect on alcohol consumption, and fail to tackle the real problems of high-strength alcohol and cut-price booze shops. Who's got it right?

Clearly pricing alone can't resolve all the problems of alcohol misuse - or get at the underlying issues of poverty, effective public education, poor mental health or despair. A wide-ranging preventative strategy is needed, of which pricing (and taxation) are only a part. But numerous academic studies have demonstrated the evidence of a connection between pricing and consumption, and the damage that high levels of consumption are doing at population level, and it's surely time to take note of that evidence in formulating a coherent and comprehensive policy response.

It seems secretary of state Andrew Lansley has expressed an interest in the role of minimum pricing in public policy, but it's perhaps of little surprise that his speech to the UK Faculty of Public Health conference in July made no mention of the subject, minimising the role of regulation, and emphasising personal responsibility instead. What a contrast with Labour's smoking ban. That too faced criticisms beforehand about its likely impact on business, and on the poorest, and accusations of ineffectiveness, exactly the criticisms levelled at minimum pricing for alcohol now. Yet today the smoking ban's recognised as one of our best and boldest public health measures, making a significant contribution to improving the health of the nation, something of which Labour can surely be proud.

It's time for us to be similarly courageous and radical when it comes to alcohol misuse. Minimum pricing could be effective at reducing problem drinking, with all its knock-on costs for individuals, for public services and for society, and on drinking by young people, a cause of particular concern. It would have little impact on consumption in pubs and restaurants, where prices would already likely comfortably exceed the minimum proposed. And importantly such a measure would remind, even, I'd dare say, reassure voters that Labour's a party that's willing to take bold and radical measures, using intervention and regulation if necessary to improve our nation's health. At the very least, we should watch the Scottish government's initiative with careful attention: rubbishing it out of hand now is the wrong way to go.

Photo: Paul Aloe 2006

Yoosk have asked a set of questions to all of the leadership candidates as part of their hustings. The first questions the candidates faced was "Would you be well placed to lead a coalition government?".

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

* David Miliband tells the Independent that he has changed since the general election.

* Ed Balls attacks the government's academies policy, saying it "failed the fairness test".

* Tristram Hunt suggests that Cameron may be something of a Heathite.

* Caroline Lucas wants voters to be given "real choice" in the electoral reform referendum.

* Mary Riddell interviews Tony Blair in the Telegraph, and says the coalition are soft on crime.

* Blair will be given extra security for his TV appearance this morning after recent protests.

* More than ten million people could get tax rebates.

* And tube strikes begin today...

There are any number of political reasons why Labour lost the election but we also have to question whether our organisation worked optimally - is that why we lost touch with the voters? I don't claim to be a polling expert or to understand all the technical issues, but in some places we didn't just lose the political arguments, we were out-organised as well.

If you examine the regional voter ID statistics you can see a relationship between contact rates and swing rates; where people did most work, it seems, the swings against Labour weren't so bad. But the correlation is not exact. For example in Luton, both its northern and southern constituencies had mediocre voter contact rates and yet these were the seats - the only ones in the east of England - where we returned Labour MPs. The two Luton representatives and their teams were clearly working very hard and building up brilliant relationships with voters, but this didn't reflect itself in the voter ID figures.

The principle of segmenting the electorate to find out who your supporters are is obviously fundamental for any political party and it's becoming easier to do this as the programs to record the information have improved. The question is whether you concentrate your efforts on getting in as much as possible of the raw data (which you then exploit during a relatively short GOTV period) or whether you focus on building relationships in their wider sense.

Contacting voters on the street brings up any number of local issues and however diligent the local candidate is, there's always something new or emerging as an issue - it could be anything from trees to traffic, noise to antisocial behaviour. If you are able to address a problem for a resident then it doesn't mean that he or she will necessarily vote for you but it does mean that you'll be remembered, and a relationship of trust is built upon which a conversation about politics can take place.

Prior to the election, the regional offices set voter ID targets and there were incentives for constituencies to hit these targets. I wonder whether this might occasionally have had perverse consequences. As supporters and candidates we spent a lot of time dashing around recording information but those electors who wished to spend longer talking about local issues could sometimes be overlooked.

New possibilities are opened up by Labour's recent increase in membership, and significant numbers of the new members seem to be young, keen and ready for hard work. We already expect candidates to work impossibly hard and perhaps rather than putting all the burden on candidates we could see our volunteers as caseworkers too, involved in investigation and follow-up, writing to officials, and the all-important feedback to residents?

In that sense we perhaps need to break down the division between candidates and supporters, between voter ID and community politics, to revitalise ourselves organisationally as well as politically. One thing won't change - we'll never outspend the Tories. But with Cameron already looking shaky, the Lib Dems in the doldrums and soon, a new leader, if we work a bit smarter we can make this a one-term government.

It's a very big education day in the Katwala household this morning, as my four year old daughter starts her first day at primary school. That is probably a good enough cause to be a little bit late when then scurrying off to catch a Fabian Society seminar on "applying the fairness test to education".

Ed Balls will be among the speakers. As well as discussing new Fabian research on educational inequality, to be published later this week, the Shadow Schools Secretary will be talking about his own new analysis of new academy schools, comparing the profile of those opening under Labour and Coalition schools policies.

Balls' analysis compares the GCSE results, proportion of children with a special educational need and deprivation of the 64 schools being replaced by Academies opening this term under the Labour government’s Academies programme and the 32 schools converting into Academies under the coalition’s new policy following this summer's legislation.

Here is a summary of the key findings of his research:


Compared to the schools being replaced by ‘Labour Academies’ this term, the schools converting to be new ‘Conservative-Lib Dem’ Academies and which all have an ‘outstanding’ rating from Ofsted:

- have just half the proportion of pupils with special educational needs – just 6.9 per cent compared to 13.8 per cent

- achieved GCSE results well above the national average with 72.6 per cent getting five A*-C grades including English and maths – compared to a national average of 50.7 per cent and an average of just 30.8 per cent in the schools being replaced by Labour Academies

- are on average located in areas with significantly fewer deprived children than schools being replaced by Labour Academies. Based on the 2007 Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index, the new Academies are located in areas with average child deprivation of 17 per cent compared to 27 per cent for schools being replaced by Labour Academies.


Ed Balls says that these differences show that the Coalition's policy "fails the fairness test".


"This analysis of Academies opening this term highlights the stark contrast between a progressive education policy under Labour to tackle disadvantage and under-performance and Michael Gove’s elitist policy which is simply about rewarding schools that are already doing well.

Through this new Tory Academies policy, the Education Secretary is giving high-performing schools in less deprived areas and with fewer children with special educational needs more funding at the expense of schools which need it most. That cannot be fair by any definition of the word.

Schools in more deprived areas with more children with special educational needs and lower results will be left with fewer resources than they need to tackle the barriers to learning their children face. That’s because these new Academies will take an equal share of the funding local authorities have to provide a range of services for children with special educational needs, behavioural problems and things like school food and transport, rather than a fair share based on the needs of the children in that school.

“Our Academies also worked in co-operation with other local schools on issues like behaviour and exclusions and went ahead with the agreement of local authorities, the new Tory Academies simply opt out and go it alone with no role for local authorities. The only similarity between Labour’s Academies policy and Michael Gove’s is that they have the same name".

Despite the perceived rows of recent weeks, the Miliband brothers are remarkably united on policy – as revealed by their answers to a series of policy questions put to them by Left Foot Forward, on deficit reduction; the ‘mansion tax’; the 50p top rate of tax; income inequality; climate change targets; the Labour government’s record on civil liberties; the immigration system; Trident and the strategic defence review; electoral reform; and party reform.

The main differences between them are on the ratio of tax and spend to reduce deficit reduction but not the size or timing. Interestingly, while Ed wants more taxation, he refuses to back David’s mansion tax. The Milibands also have a nuanced difference on including Trident in the Strategic Defence Review but neither explicitly supports scrapping Trident and both are in favour of multilateral disarmament.

Both are committed to make tackling income inequality an explicit goal of Labour in government – something that New Labour failed do in four manifestos – both say that government should aim for the “almost total decarbonisation of electricity by 2030″, as recommended by the Committee on Climate Change, and on immigration they both say issues like welfare housing are the main concerns for people concerned about immigration.

What we are left with is a difference in tone with Ed mentioning “New Labour” four times and David not mentioning New Labour at all.

Here are the Milibands’ answers in full:

Do you support Alistair Darling’s plan to halve the deficit in 4 years with a 2:1 ratio? If not, what is your preferred approach to deficit reduction?

David Miliband: Yes. It was working to nurture the recovery and jobs. Our plan to cut the deficit involved tough decisions but would have been based on Labour principles: protecting front-line services, prioritising jobs and making sure those with the broadest shoulders pay more.

The Tories want to say that we are in denial about the deficit. They are the ones in denial – they said their budget was fair and it wasn’t. We should not fall into their trap. We need to be putting the boosters behind growth, not undermining it.

To tackle the deficit sustained economic growth has to be the cornerstone of any plan.

Ed Miliband: That is why I would protect government spending that is designed to strengthen British businesses and job creation. It is why I think the government got it badly wrong when it decided to cut support for the industries of the future, for example by scrapping the loan to Sheffield Forgemasters and doing away with Regional Development Agencies.

But, of course, growth alone won’t be enough. There is a need for both reductions in public spending and tax rises. Alistair’s plan would have required lower cuts than George Osborne’s austerity budget and should be our starting point for the future but it’s also right to keep the pace of reduction under close review as economic circumstances change. We must retain flexibility whilst the UK and global economy are so uncertain.

What I would change is the ratio of tax and spending in the deficit reduction plan as I think we can do even more to protect the public services we all rely on and the universal benefits like the winter fuel allowance and child benefit that the coalition are preparing to axe, despite David Cameron’s pre-election promises.

So I would raise taxes on the banks, by up to an additional £5 billion, and use this resource to protect the entitlements that help those on middle and low incomes and to better protect our public services. This changes the ratio of tax rises and spending cuts compared to the plan set out in government but will ensure that the banks and bankers who are responsible for the financial crisis contribute most to reducing the deficit.

Do you support a mansion tax or some other form of wealth tax?

DM: If we need to raise taxes they should be fair – a Mansion Tax on houses over £2 million would be fairer than cuts to benefits that hit the poorest families.

EM: At a time when even the Tories accept that there is a need for tax rises to tackle the deficit, it is more important than ever that we have a fair and progressive tax system in the UK. I think it is right that income should be a key factor in determining direct tax rates but the tax system should also take into account wealth as well, as it already does to some extent, for example with inheritance tax.

I am clear that Labour under my leadership will fight the next election on a tax plan which represents fair taxation, protecting those on low and middle incomes as well as our public services.

Do you think the 50p tax rate should be permanent? If not, when would you look to scrap it?

DM: It should certainly stay this Parliament – and we should make tax policy one Parliament at a time. Tax policy should always be progressive.

EM: Yes, it should be permanent. In part this is a matter of deficit reduction, but this is also a matter of fairness. Our tax system must be progressive and that means people on an income of over £150,000 should make a bigger contribution. Those on middle and low incomes should be confident that Labour is on their side and will put their interests first. If it’s possible to make tax cuts in the future I would prioritise these groups, not the most affluent.

Would you make tackling income inequality a specific goal of a Labour government?

DM: Absolutely. The gap between rich and poor matters and we need to attack income inequality with all the tools at our disposal. That means taking action ‘upstream’ in the structures of society and not just compensating in the welfare system.

So we should campaign for a living wage. I want to reform corporate governance so employees have representation on re-numeration committees and say in top pay. And I want to extend rather than cut the employment guarantee of the Future Jobs Fund.

EM: Yes. It is the right thing to do for people on low incomes and it is the right thing to do for society as a whole. Strong, cohesive societies are ones in which hard work is fairly rewarded. More unequal societies are less well off in a range of ways, for example suffering with poorer physical health, poorer mental health and higher crime rates.

New Labour was too cautious on this issue, and as a result, despite us being the most redistributive government in history, inequality rose. So we need a different approach that targets the fundamental causes of inequality rather than focusing on just trying to use redistributive payments to correct for failures in our economy. That is why I am so passionate about a living wage and want to see tax cuts for responsible businesses who pay a living wage.

Many people are surprised to discover that taxpayers are paying more than £6bn each year subsidising low wages in our economy and I want that to end – improving pay and saving money for government. I want a High Pay Commission to sit alongside the Low Pay Commission and address the unfairness that comes when a banker earns in a week what their cleaner earns in a year. And I want a new industrial activism to build a new economy less reliant on low-wage, low-skill jobs and better at investing in people and in skills.

The Committee on Climate Change called for “almost total decarbonisation of electricity by 2030”. Would that begin to happen if you were leader?

DM: Yes. In Government we got the legislative framework in place but we now need to turn laws into action. As a start we should aim for a major programme of energy efficiency through retrofitting domestic and commercial properties, paid for by future savings on energy bills. We need to diversify our energy mix with more electricity from nuclear and renewable sources. I am also a big supporter of electric cars. I think they are very important – as long as the electricity is generated from renewable sources.

I am deeply worried that the Government cannot deliver this. Chris Huhne has stalled on the Green Investment Bank and their tightening of planning laws has put renewable projects at risk.

EM: Under my leadership Labour will work to bring about a revolution in Britain’s energy system. I want to see around 40 per cent of our electricity coming from low carbon sources by 2020, en route to an almost complete decarbonisation in the 2030s. Most of this will come from renewables, including wind, marine, solar and sustainable bio-energy. We already have more offshore wind-power than any other country in the world, and our plans could see this increase up to forty-fold. Alongside this we need to facilitate a new generation of nuclear power stations and a world-leading programme of four clean coal plants with carbon capture and storage technology. Labour banned unabated coal fired power stations – the only government in the world to have done so. These plans are under threat from the coalition.

Climate change is the biggest threat our country faces which is why it must be central to everything we do. Under Labour we went further than any other country in the world, and lots of countries followed our lead. We were the first to put binding carbon targets into law, we created the independent Climate Change Commission to monitor progress and hold the government to account.

I hope the coalition doesn’t back away from the progress we made but it is already betraying its promise to be the greenest government ever. I read recently that the coalition plans to scrap Labour’s Green Investment Bank – a billion pound fund to invest in low-carbon industry for Britain’s future. They are also planning cuts to schemes that subsidise household generation of renewable energy. That’s not the right way forward. Unless we go ahead with the plans I set out as energy secretary we will never achieve the greening of our energy supplies that we need. Instead of creating uncertainty and delay, the coalition should reaffirm the commitments made by the previous Labour Government.

Do you believe the Coalition is right to have abolished Section 44 stop-and-search powers and ID cards? Are there other pieces of legislation, criticised for their infringements of ‘civil liberties’, that you would like to see repealed?

DM: On section 44, we didn’t pass it to prevent people taking photographs and stop and search powers must be used sensitively. It was abused and that’s wrong.

On ID cards we failed badly to develop a coherent case.

We were wrong on 90 days but it is not on the statute books. I have argued for ten years that Labour must combine a social democratic commitment to social justice with a liberal commitment to individual freedom. That must drive our politics.

EM: Yes. This is another example of where I want Labour to change and move on from the approach taken by New Labour. I think in government we were too casual about people’s liberties and that undermined many of the good things we did like CCTV. We must protect people’s security, but in a way that shows we are serious about avoiding an overbearing state. So we should say yes to CCTV, but never again to compulsory ID cards, 90 or 42 days’ imprisonment without charge and Section 44.

What further changes, if any, would you look to make to the immigration system?

DM: I think we ended up with the right policy on immigration but we took too long to get there. And the truth is that many of the complaints about immigration that we all get on the doorstep are proxies for wider issues such as housing and welfare. We need an immigration system fair to those who come here and fair to those who want to come here.

EM: I believe immigration is good for Britain and I take great pride from the experience of my mother and father coming to Britain before and after the Second World War, that Britain is prepared to welcome those who do come and settle here. Of course, there also need to be rules, including a points-based system for immigration. What we must show we understand is the different impacts that immigration has on different groups in society.

Immigration is a class issue because of the varied impact it has on people depending on their economic circumstances. So alongside free movement of labour in Europe, you need to protect the workforce from having their wages and conditions undercut and deal with other underlying concerns, like housing. Only by talking and responding on these issues can we remain the relatively open society that we are.

Will you carry out your own Strategic Defence Review? Could a system other than Trident be the right defence and financial choice for Britain?

DM: I think it is right that we constantly hold the Government to account on their defence polices and renew our own. They will soon finish their Strategic Defence Review but we will need to vote on Trident – this Parliament. We should do so with full debate – better than in 2006.

Trident requires fewer warheads than other systems – that is why it is a minimum deterrent. We should always keep costs down. And we must continue Gordon Brown’s role as a world leader in the drive for a world without nuclear weapons.

EM: We need to look very carefully at the issue of Trident and I share Des Browne’s view that it should be included in the Strategic Defence Review. I believe in multilateral nuclear disarmament and that means maintaining an independent nuclear deterrent but seeking progress in multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation discussions. But this should be the minimum capability consistent with protecting our national security and that is why inclusion in the Strategic Defence Review is the right answer for Britain.

I would seek reductions in the capabilities of other nuclear powers and binding commitments from those nations not adhering to or not bound by the non-proliferation treaty. I think there is a strong case for carrying out our own Strategic Defence Review so that we can give appropriate scrutiny to the Government’s plan.

Will you lead the Shadow Cabinet and broader party to campaign for a Yes vote on AV?

DM: I support AV but I don’t support the poison pills in the Government’s Bill. We must continue to campaign for a separate AV Bill. The Lib Dems are giving parliamentary reform a bad name.

EM: I support AV for the House of Commons and will campaign for it. I think it is right that we make politics more accountable, and ensuring that MPs have greater than 50 per cent support in their constituency would be an important step in the right direction alongside a fully elected House of Lords and wider reforms to our political process, including to party funding. But before we get there we need to defeat the Coalition’s efforts to link electoral reform with a wholesale gerrymandering of parliamentary boundaries.

Will you reform party structures to give members a greater role in policy making? If so, what changes will you make?

DM: Yes. That’s why I want a Labour Party chair democratically elected as a stronger voice for members. I also want Labour’s leader in local government in the Shadow Cabinet.

EM: A Labour Party member in Cornwall, Nick, put it best when he said to me that New Labour had behaved as if “the role of the Labour leader is to protect the country from the views of the members of the Labour Party”. Times have changed since the 1980s and we need to move on from the New Labour view that that our party and our movement are not a vital part of how we govern in the interests of all Britain. Unless we change this style of leadership we will never change society in the way we aspire to do because we will never have the political movement we need.

Anyone who thinks that listening to our party is somehow pandering is doing them a great disservice. Indeed, if we had listened more to them, we would have been a better government not a worse one: on housing, on agency workers, on tuition fees.

So I will introduce an elected party chair to provide a stronger voice for members and I want to see party members far more involved in the policy making process with a stronger process for helping members get involved in the National Policy Forum process. I’d like to see local parties sending more delegates to conference and I’d also like to see members speaking in more debates at conference.

• To vote in the Labour leadership election, you must join the Labour Party before Wednesday.

By Joseph Cottrell-Boyce

When I was a little boy in Liverpool in the 1980’s politics was very simple. The Tories were bad and we (Labour) were good. Maggie was a ludicrous pantomime villain, crushing the valiant miners and dockers. We protested and made posters and helped our parents canvass. I don’t remember ever meeting a real live Tory - neighbours, friends and family - we were all Labour and Labour was us.

Then came 1997 and things got complicated. Suddenly we were in power but something wasn’t quite right. The issues which had defined grass-root Labour activism for the preceding decades were not on the new agenda. The core of Thatchers’ neo-liberal reforms not only remained intact but were advanced with zeal. The phrase ‘Third Way’ kept cropping up. We were confused. Mandy tried to break it down for us: “We are all Thaterites now”. Oh. Shit.

My parents let their party membership slip, as did most of our friends and neighbours. The activism which had created such a sense of community was replaced by a shared gloomy cynicism. And then came 2001 and the shit really, really hit the fan. Afghanistan. Iraq. 42 days detention without charge. Just as we had marched for the miners and dockers now the left marched against New Labour. How had it come to this?

Fast forward nine years. New Labour has been defeated in a general election. Aside from this, its toxic cocktail of neo-liberal economics, aggressive neo-colonial foreign policies and the erosion of civil liberties has left a significant segment of the left feeling homeless and betrayed. There are those within the Labour Party who believe that the most important quality in a new leader must be their ability to beat the Tories. While their own politics may be to the left of David Miliband they feel they must back him as the ‘safest bet’. This is surely throwing away the opportunity of a generation. An opportunity to change not just the direction of the Labour Party, but to finally offer the nation an alternative to Thatcher and Blair’s neo-liberal legacy.

At this critical moment the Labour Party needs a leader who genuinely believes that status quo is not the only way. Who has the vision to see that there are alternatives to the policies which have shaped Britain since the 1980’s. We don’t have to keep sliding inevitably towards the American nightmare. We could instead try to emulate some nice Scandinavian country.

The cuts currently being made by the ConDem government are truly staggering in their scale and ambition. They amount to a wholesale, ideologically motivated assault on the public sector. In the face of this Labour must be more than just the lesser of two evils, it must become what it once was; a progressive party of change. Diane Abbott is one of a core of valiant MPs who remembered what Labour stood for and stood strong, despite being sidelined by their own party. In disobeying the whip, she and others like her instead acted in accordance with the true spirit of the Labour Party.

For me Diane is the only possible first choice for Labour leader.

The Sunday Times reports - Tories lose nerve on bank bonuses - that George Osborne is looking at weakening the recommendations on disclosure of bankers' pay, after criticising them for being too weak when they were published. His Cabinet colleague Vince Cable called the recommendations "an embarrasing mouse of a report".

The report [Times paywall] is sourced to the Treasury. If accurate, it could be part of a softening-up exercise for perhaps the most brazen u-turn yet from the new government.


Although part of the Financial Services Act passed in the final days of the last parliament, no detail on the new disclosures was agreed. According to Treasury sources, Osborne is “reviewing” the measures following an intense lobbying campaign by some of the giant international banks. Some level of pay disclosure is expected, but it is likely to fall short of the original recommendations.


Any Treasury softening of the Walker recommendations would be extremely embarassing for the Liberal Democrats. Business Secretary Vince Cable could not credibly defend a weakening of the recommendations, refusing to mince his words in setting out why these were far too weak, telling the Commons last November


There was incredible embarrassment, in the Government and elsewhere, at the whitewash that Sir David Walker has produced on disclosure. The idea that what he calls high-end staff who are highly paid should not be individually identified is a very strange one, because we already have explicit exposure in several cases ... Sir David Walker has produced an embarrassing mouse of a report that has clearly embarrassed the City Minister.


Cable's case was a cogent one - particularly in noting the discrepancy with existing disclosure requirements on company directors - and widely shared. This led to the Treasury proposing to extend the Walker proposals to cover earnings over £500,000, with disclosure bands in £500,000 increments to £5 million plus. (Cable called for the starting figure to begin at the Prime Minister's salary benchmark).

One option now being considered by Osborne is to keep the £500,000 starting figure - but then to scrap all of the disclosure bands above it. The effect will make the information highly uninformative for shareholders, regulators and the broader public. The banks would see that as a significant lobbying victory.

But this is not just a question of Coalition management. Liberal Democrats inside and outside the government should be able to argue that this is a credibility test for both Coalition parties - on an issue which is going to hit the headlines during bonus rounds again this Autumn and next Spring, when the public and the media will naturally ask whether anything has changed.

As the Sunday Times notes:


When Walker’s proposals were debated in parliament last November, Osborne suggested they did not go far enough and called for all high-paid bankers to be named.


Here is what Osborne told the Commons, on 26th November last year:


As we will debate the Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill on Monday, I will not dwell on it today, except to comment on the Walker review published this morning Everyone wants the boards of banks to do their job better and to understand more fully the risks that they are running. We do not want a repeat of what happened at the Royal Bank of Scotland, where an all-powerful chief executive went unchallenged by his own board, by Government regulators, and by a Government who instead chose to knight him for services to banking.

I spoke to David Walker this week, and we support his plans to shake up the bank boards and improve their risk controls. We also support his proposals to make those banks disclose the number of their employees who are on high salaries. What happened to all the talk from the Government that they would disclose people's names as well? Lord Myners said just two months ago that the pay and the identity of the highest-paid bankers would be disclosed by the Government. However, when asked about that on the radio this morning, David Walker said that

"the idea being canvassed by Lord Myners...is not supported by a shred of evidence of the kind that I am interested in."

That is not what one would call a ringing endorsement of the Chancellor's City Minister from the Chancellor's City adviser. Perhaps Lord Myners will be the next GOAT to slip the tether. When it comes to the Government and the banks, surely the public are entitled to ask why the Government talk tough and make promises, but then fail to deliver. As we wait to see bonus payments over the coming months, we will remember the Prime Minister's promise that the era of the big bonus is over


When bonus payments are revealed, George Osborne knows that the public will remember how own promises to be much tougher on these issues than his predecessors.

By Mark Ferguson / @MarkFergusonUK

Labour's five leadership candidates have just come off the Sky News' debate stage in Norwich. It was one of the last chances the candidates will have to speak to the country in a TV debate. Once again, nothing from this debate will have changed the game. TV debates in this contest have served to highlight all the candidates' known stregnths and weaknesses; for all five, it's as you were.

Ed Balls was brilliant and brash, opposing the ConDem cuts with rigour - but always in the shadow of the Milibands, who were literally and metaphorically centre stage. Andy Burnham was strong on health care and aspiration. Diane was Diane, brilliantly and candidly opposing tuition fees and the war in Iraq but offering too little for the future.

All five candidates describe themselves as socialists, comfortably. All five feel a need for Labour to move on from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Asked who they prefer, though Diane Abbott and Ed Balls prefer Brown. Balls and Ed Miliband said they were loyal to both, but that the battles between the two were harmful. David Miliband prefers David Miliband, and certainly doesn't like people interrupting him - but that in itself shows leadership.

The Sky News' format was a little too rigid. All broadcasters are only just coming to terms with what works for these discussions and what doesn't. The 30 second limit on answers at the top of the show stifled all the cadidates - though there was a little freer form in the programme's second half. And this was the best broadcast debate yet - better than the shambolic Newsnight discussion at the beginning of the race and better than the Channel 4 debate last week. The general knowledge questions were a nice touch, but the debate also focussed on policy differences which have indeed crystallised in recent weeks. Those are real differences, on policy and the direction of the party.

We're now at the business end of this leadership contest. Today's debate showed that it's one we can be proud of as a party. That it's too close to call after the ballot has opened looks to be galvanising the party, not dividing it.

By Jim Sweetman / @jimbo9848

There is something disquieting about the speed with which political memoirs arrive including those which, like Tony Blair’s, are not ghost-written by someone else. In ‘A Journey’ there is even a tagged on section about the coalition and its values which says nothing for the value of hindsight and for taking a long-term view of recent history. Instead, the process is more like the medieval precursor to execution which involved cutting the criminal open and spilling their entrails into a bowl in order that they could look at them and repent. That seems to be par for the course these days for political memoirs in the Blair and Mandelson style.

There have been suggestions that the publication of the memoir is at best unfortunate and, at worst, an attempt to disrupt the current leadership election. That is probably unfair. What we do know is that all political publishing takes place around now - before the conference season - and Tony Blair has not been here to fan the flames of controversy apart from the odd pre-recorded TV launch. For the most part, there are no surprises. The past is rehashed in the light of the present and it turns out that Tony Blair did not make too many mistakes - in his view. However, the two more interesting aspects are, firstly, what ‘A Journey’ says about his relationships with other politicians and with Gordon Brown in particular, and, secondly, the way that the book confirms Blair’s personal drive to do what he saw as the right thing. Both say a lot about leadership as a political activity. 

The Blair view of Brown and, for that matter, the Brown view of Blair has not been much added to by the publication. As usual, we hear that the victim was admired for various characteristics but possessed fatal flaws. The media emphasises the flaws over the praise. In the end, the popular impression is that Brown is unsociable, difficult, and hard to shift and sulky whereas Blair will always engage, is charming, susceptible to argument and only a little tetchy when pushed. It is not always clear what is a virtue. Blair was clearly persuaded into Iraq by American arguments and his own emotional and moral dispositions at the time. Brown might not have gone there but if he had actively opposed rather than grumpily retreated into his Treasury bunker things could have been different. Blair, by his own account, recognised that a Brown premiership would be a disaster yet, as a fixer and compromiser, declined to lead the party away from it.

What this suggests is that both these people do not do leadership very well. Blair's messianic drive and Brown's solid reliance on understated core values both run counter to what modern leadership should look like. Compare the double dealing in cabinet reshuffles over the past few years with what leadership guru Jim Collins says about buses. An old-fashioned corporate leader, and for that read Tony Blair, drives the bus and tells the people on it where they're going. In contrast, the leaders of improving companies get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. They put people first and then work out the direction. It isn't hard to see how Tony Blair had the direction in his mind in 1997 and dismissed any diversion that did not seem to be associated with New Labour. Sometimes that looks like passionate conviction and at others like blindness.

The other thing that leadership gurus talk about today is distributed leadership. The leader describes a vision to the team and the team first agree it through discussion and then work - in their own ways - to deliver it. They don’t go off in different directions and are clearly accountable for what they do. This sort of accountability was always undervalued in the New Labour project which became increasingly centralised so that the team perceived themselves as delivery people and slaves to the message rather than as strategic innovators.

All of this matters because at the end of the current leadership election process, Labour is going to have a new team. One of the things which is abundantly clear from the race is the quality of the candidates and the idea that they will not be involved in the next government because they disagree on some matters with the new leader is absurd. It is equally absurd to think that they will stop disagreeing in some outmoded pretence of cabinet unity. Instead, they need to be on the bus and in the right seats. Achieving that is going to need a change in how our political leadership operates - developing a consensual and agreed vision, giving people real responsibilities and properly holding them to account. If the 2001 government had done that, it is possible that we would not be seeing the inspection of entrails that has characterised the end of the Brown era and the bus would still be running in the right direction.

Ed Miliband leads his brother in a poll of LGBT members of the Labour Party for the Pink News website; of the 680 sample, Ed polls 42 per cent, David 31 per cent, Diane Abbott 16 per cent, Andy Burnham 7 per cent and Ed Balls 4 per cent. Among the 236 Labour voters who are not party members, however, Diane Abbott leads with 36 per cent, followed by Ed Miliband (35 per cent), David Miliband (20 per cent), Mr Burnham (5 per cent) and Mr Balls (4 per cent).

In an article for Pink News last month, Ed wrote:

“I know that civil partnerships were a major step forward, but I also hear those who want the genuine equality of gay marriage… ‘Separate but equal’ is not good enough and PinkNews.co.uk’s own recent poll demonstrated the huge support in the LGBT community for a right to marry.

“The cruel consequence of the current compromise is trans people forced to divorce their partners before they could be legally recognised in their new gender. I want to see heterosexual and same-sex partnerships put on an equal basis and a Labour Party that I lead will campaign to make gay marriage happen.”

While in an interview with the website in July, David said:

“I’ve got the beliefs and capabilities to lead us back into government and build a more equal country… What still scares me the most is the amount of homophobic bullying going on. But we can’t just change that by bringing in new laws.

“The work to effect the best change is to tackle homophobic bullying in schools and to make sure there is no discrimination in law. For example, the law on inciting homophobic hatred is one area which is outstanding.”

Adding:

“I think people would say Labour did huge amounts but we can’t be complacent. That was done by small and large measures, by local and national leadership. And there is a recognition that you had all these years with Tories with their heads stuck in the ground…

“They [the Coalition] are not trying to roll anything back, as far as I can see. But they don’t have a good record and the Chris Grayling thing [where the shadow home secretary said B&B owners should be allowed to bar gays] was worrying.”

In an editorial, Pink News themselves say:

“Of the two candidates with a serious chance of wining, our readership have backed Ed Miliband, which will surprise many. Perhaps it’s because David’s popularity within the LGBT community was just skin deep.

“They have been impressed by his younger brother’s commitment to full marriage equality, a position supported by some 98 per cent of the UK LGBT community.”

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...