Originally published @ 12:15 pm, Sun 29th Aug 2010
Andy Burnham was the first candidate for Labour Leader to visit South Derbyshire Labour Party (at the Newhall Labour Club on Saturday) and he did his cause no harm at all.
Repeating his core message of being true Labour, he made some intelligent points about new Labour and old Labour, (for example, saying old Labour never really reflecting the values of ordinary Labour supporters until it embraced the "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" that Tony Blair introduced).
Citing his longer experience as an MP and Minister than some of the other candidates, he wondered if perhaps his profile hadn’t been as high cos he had chosen to be loyal in his way of working throughout his service.
More than other candidates, I think Andy has sought to give a framework of values to his view of Labour’s future direction. Looking for better value from policies and initiatives through them resonating with values that have been rehearsed too.
Andy also places a stronger emphasis on arguing the case for change – and it’s true his main aim of a National Care Service would have had more impact if we’d chosen to argue the case for some time before the election.
He’s published a manifesto – which is of course double-edged if one of your key points is for the Labour party as a whole to have a much larger say in policy - http://www.andy4leader.com/images/AspirationalSocialism1.pdf (and he’s published another article in the Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/26/land-value-tax-labour-party )
His “five core values” are -
Redistributive – where resources are shared;
Collectivist – where we work together for the common good;
Aspirational – where everyone can achieve their hopes and dreams;
Sustainable – where we take only what we need from a planet of scarce resources;
Internationalist – where we work constructively on the world stage.
I used something similar in the General Election – calling one of my newspapers “Aiming High” and embracing 3 core values that echo Andy’s –
Achieving more together than we do apart;
Helping those most who need most help;
Care for the environment.
No such list is truly complete without extolling a free society, although given our history and status, it seems a bit academic. And strictly speaking, it’s right to emphasis sustainable development rather than the environment per se, but “sustainable development” has always struggled to make the necessary impact.
I could usefully have added internationalist to my list; Gordon Brown demonstrated with some effect on the importance of this with worldwide action on reflating the economy (combined to David Cameron’s timid actions (pleased to have had nice discussions) and hopeless actions (as Andy pointed out “condemning Pakistan from India, whilst on a trade mission to India)). (David Miliband has also pointed out the value of progress made on nuclear weapons disarmament in recent years.)
International issues were to the fore of a meeting in my own ward hosted by Chris Leslie MP for Ed Balls in my own ward, which also took place yesterday. http://www.edballs4labour.org/blog/?p=927
The meeting highlighted the donations for the victims of flooding in Pakistan made by the British people and highlighted the need for more to be done.
But it offered chances for wider points too such as the progress of our schools, including at the Elliott Durham campus – where all those years ago, Ed competed to be a county athlete at pole vault against 2 others (one of whom had never used a pole), only to find their best efforts were worse than the county champions of the high jump.
So a busy day for meetings.
Listening to Radio 5 at the end of the day, it transpired they’d interviewed Ed Miliband and focussed on what he said and what he did and didn’t do in the run-up to the Iraq war. I supported our intervention, not least cos Saddam Hussein had failed after 13 years to allow free and proper inspections after the first war, when he was supposed to have allowed it in 13 weeks or so. But the second war took place before the 2005 election and although it’s possible that it was raised more than once with me at the 2010 General Election, I can only remember the once (whilst canvassing West Street). The country had moved on and yet some have chosen to highlight the issue as defining for where we go next as a party. So in a slot that should have been available for painting a vision, Ed was backed into a corner whilst explaining that such conversations with a brother (whilst not an MP and not living in Britain) was privileged. Perhaps if he'd spent more time developing a vision, rather than collecting the policies that were less popular in government and suggesting he wouldn't have done it like that.
TO BE COMPLETED
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