Are the leadership candidates being asked the right questions?

Yesterday’s Times leader (I would provide the link, but it’s inconveniently placed behind the Times’ paywall) sets out an interesting problem for the five Labour leadership candidates.  Despite months spent answering questions, the paper’s view is that it counts for nothing as they aren’t being asked the right questions. After over fifty hustings across the country that is quite a disappointing prognosis.

Is the plethora of husting events producing better questioning of the candidates? If the Party had to do it over again then I think there would be a serious rethink of the hustings calendar. Regional and local Labour parties, socialist societies, unions and other groups forming part of the all important ‘Labour family’ eagerly grabbed their own personal opportunity to quiz the candidates. (Sympathies go out to the campaigns’ diary secretaries!) But the result has been near identical Q&A sessions being asked up and down the country.

My colleague David Chaplin had a point in suggesting that hustings could have been better orgainsed around distinct policy lines. The likely bun fight between areas wanting to hust the candidates on particular policy areas would have been an issue, but it would have helpfully broadened out the questioning and focused on policy.

A good idea has been to encourage like minded groups to come together to do joint hustings (like the joint Young Fabians/LCID/SERA/Co-Op Youth hustings on Labour in the World). Similarly we’ve been organising webchats with individual leadership candidates, to give Young Fabians across the country a chance to put their all-important question direct to each candidate, no matter what the topic (you can join with the the first is tomorrow with Ed Miliband at 12.30pm here).

Still, we need to focus on the right questions being asked. Everyone will have their view; my three all important questions which the next leader of the Labour Party needs perfect answers for are:

1)    What will be your immediate priorities be post this long leadership contest: The Coalition have managed to grab a 100 days of government free from any meaningful opposition. What will you spend your first 100 days focusing on?

2)    How will you unify the party and more importantly the Shadow Cabinet: Alistair Campbell’s diaries continually point to disunity at the top of the Party threatening to hamper a return to power – how will you stop this happening again?

3)    How are you going to attract the broadest support amongst the voting public: Both the left and the right of the Party argue that Labour lost the support of respective left/right sections of the public. How are you going to deal with that situation?

You can join our lunchtime webchat with Ed Miliband tomorrow , 12.30pm, here. You can also submit a question in advance by emailing me at vrampulla@youngfabians.org.uk.

The Fabian Leadership Hustings: a campaigner’s view

Here Young Fabian member and campaigner Ben Knight gives his views on the Fabian leadership hustings earlier this week.

This made it the third leadership debate I’ve seen in 4 days, and far from being a case of 5 people in auto-pilot, it was a lively and engaging debate.

Overall, I am greatly enthused about the future of Labour, both as an effective opposition and as a future government. David Miliband, in his opening remarks, said that it was now time to move beyond the era of Blair/Brown and this is something that needs to be hammered home – provided that lessons are learned of course.

Something that really set this evening apart from previous debates was a question about the candidate’s regrets. The candidates were asked ‘Which are the three most important issues on which you disagreed with the Government since 1997?’ Quite rightly, Iraq was the most common response. Diane Abott and Ed Miliband are making sure that their opposition to the war is well known, and I think that being able to say that they opposed such a devastating and unpopular war will help avoid future pain on this issue.

I was somewhat disappointed that Ed Balls expressed concern over the ‘loss of trust’ Iraq led to, rather than the loss of life – for both sides. Whilst he is certainly right to make his point, I think perhaps a sense of perspective is needed. In order to go forward, the mistakes of the past must be openly and honestly debated.

Staying with the theme of regrets, Ed Miliband was the only candidate to mention not being tough enough on the banks. I would have hoped that this would be something of a pressing concern for all five candidates, given that the coalition is trying to rebuild the old system as it was, rather than dare try a new model.

I was also impressed with Ed Miliband’s proposals for a high pay commission and his campaign for a living wage; they are both great causes worthy of support and I hope to see them come to fruition soon. With only days before the first budget of Coalition, it is imperative that banking reform is kept at the top of the agenda, and that Labour continues to be the voice of those least able to speak up for themselves.

I felt that the evening gave a good sign of things to come and that regardless of the eventual victor there are some dead certs for Labour’s future. Firstly – electoral reform. All candidates made arguments in favour of the Alternative Vote, as it requires any successful candidate to be elected with a majority of the vote, and it retains the crucial constituency link between voters and MP.

Secondly, there is a lot of support for Harriet Harman’s proposal of appointing women to 50% of shadow cabinet posts. The candidates argued this was needed in order to change the male-centric culture of Westminster, which at present poses a barrier to female entry and success in politics.

For me, the most salient point of the night was made by Andy Burnham, who seemed far less nervous tonight then when I first saw him speak. As the other candidates debated the pros and cons of AV versus PR, votes at 16 and House of Lords reform, Burnham reminded them that to a vast majority of people these issues are simply not the most important right now.

As unemployment is predicted to go up, welfare is reduced and harder to get, and with the government seemingly taking abject glee in watching it all unfold, Andy Burnham has delivered a sobering message to us all. It is imperative that Labour is vocal, organised and united so that it may once again offer an alternative vision – and offer hope – to the people of Britain that Mr Cameron and Clegg’s ‘new politics’ neglects to be concerned for.