A single issue voter

During the general election I came across plenty of single issue voters and in this Labour leadership election I plan on being a single issue voter myself. My issue is women in the Labour Party and what our next leader plans to do to increase the number of women participating in the Party and standing for election. My experience of being a candidate was of operating in what at times felt like an all male world. Even within the Young Fabians it is a challenge to get young women to stand for election to the Executive, although our Young Fabian Women event the other week showed we have no shortage of bright, young women with lots to offer. I want not just commitments around All Women Shortlists and balancing the cabinet, whilst important, in many ways these just disguise broader issues around the engagement of women in politics. I want to hear the candidates’ ideas around how they will get more women involved in grass roots politics, the role of women at Party Conference and how they will encourage more women to seek selection as parliamentary candidates. That’s my single issue, so far there have been a few promising murmurings from some candidates but I want more. Whoever comes out with a clear plan for getting more women active in the Labour Party gets my vote.

You can be too nice…

I was a candidate in the General Election and at my first hustings my opponent pulled out my chair for me to sit down. He was simply being polite and it was well meant, but straight away it left me feeling that I was somehow (as I was) being treated differently to the other candidates.

At tonight’s leadership hustings all the candidates went to great lengths to talk about their aspirations to widen the appeal of the Labour Party and in particular get more women involved. They were also super supportive and friendly to Diane, but in doing so somehow singled her out as different, as if she needed that extra bit of support. Now I know that people will respond with comments about nominations (indeed, one of the candidates made the same remark tonight), but regardless of how she got there, Diane is in the contest for Labour leader. She has proved herself more than capable of holding her own in public debates and whilst the older brother routine of her opponents is well meant (and probably unintentional) it risks undermining her contribution.

I realise there is no malice involved, and the other candidates are as well intentioned as my chivalrous Conservative, but if we are going to have a serious discussion about women in the Labour Party and about changing the culture of politics, we need to start with the contest itself.

The same, but different. What I learnt from the first Labour leadership hustings.

Don’t forget the Young Fabians are co-hosting a leadership hustings on Monday 14 June. For more information, visit this website.

I was lucky/unlucky enough (depending on your perspective) to attend the New Statesman Labour leadership hustings earlier in the week. As the hustings took place on the same day as nominations closed, I imagine they’ll get more media attention than the other fifty-odd hustings taking place across the country over the coming weeks. So much that could have been said about them may already have been said.

For what it’s worth, this is a (personal) summary of what I learnt at those hustings:

• The two Eds could barely conceal their contempt for one another. Ed M had a good line about it “being like the Treasury” when Ed B was pulled up for waffling. Ed B made some pointed remarks about the manifesto Ed M wrote.
• Diane Abbott will make the hustings more entertaining, for sure. But she’s likely to drag the other candidates left as they attempt to combat her popularity amongst a fairly vocal section of the Labour party. (See Hopi Sen’s post on why Mili D may come to regret Abbott being on the ballot).
• We should avoid a three-month long public self-flagellation. We lost the last election because we didn’t have a positive vision/narrative for the future of the country. Spending the whole leadership contest picking over what went wrong in 13 years will be an horrifically pointless waste of time and is unlikely to endear us to the electorate (this is an question of balance, not one of avoiding talking about the difficult introspective issues).
• Only two candidates, in my view, showed they had the ‘common touch’ – Diane Abbott and Andy Burnham. The Milibands show flashes of passion, although at times came across as managerial automatons. Ed Balls has a surprising ability to mix verbosity, pomposity and aggression when speaking.
• All of the candidates need better lines on the economic issues facing the country – Abbott, Burnham and the Milis need more substance, Balls need to stop sounding like he’s reading from a textbook.
• The consensus from those in the room tweeting about the event was that Andy Burnham had an awful hustings. I disagree. I thought he performed well and certainly better than could have been expected. He was passionate and refused to abandon his record for expediency – not populist, but principled. I think he will play well on television, too – unlike some of the other candidates. Far from being an “also ran”, I think Andy Burnham may be a dark horse in the campaign. Some of his answers lacked polish and substance, although this will change as the campaign drags on.
• David M was impressive on defence and foreign affairs. His answers on Trident showed real leadership potential, even if they weren’t universally welcomed by the audience (the event was co-sponsored by the CND).
• The battle between the Miliband brothers is going to be a key focus of the media, and their facile analysis of it will annoy and irritate me by the end of the summer.
• Andy Burnham’s make-up was good.
• This is going to be a long campaign, fuelled by the same half-baked phrases and jokes. I’m glad I’ll only be going to a couple of hustings. I’m more glad I’m not one of the candidates.
• We should have had a proper leadership contest in 2007.
• Hecklers should stop looking so smug with themselves. They are not big. Or clever.

I am undecided as to who to support. Genuinely.

In truth there is more that unites the candidates than divides them. Hopefully by September there will be an obvious choice for Leader.