Ahead of the second reading of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill tonight, and with most newspapers and commentators having declared their preferences, the candidates chatted at lunchtime with the denizens of Mumsnet, the online talking shop regarded in Westminster as a bellwether of middle-class sentiment.
At this advanced stage of the hustings, the candidates (and the Milibands in particular) have become adept at trotting out boilerplate replies to most questions (NB: David’s weapon of choice is a custard cream). However, there were several gems that showed there’s still life in the campaign.
The candidates began by roundly slamming this evening’s bill, Ed Miliband labeling it “a bill with AV window-dressing which tries to rig the parliamentary boundaries and abolishes public inquiries that have been in place since 1947”. He also rebutted claims that he is indecisive on critical issues, citing “tough decisions in government from supporting the expansion of nuclear power to taking on international opposition to deliver the Copenhagen climate-change agreement” from his tenure as energy secretary.
David Miliband weighed in on the current peace talks, saying that the “absence of a Palestinian state is the biggest failure of international diplomacy and the greatest threat to the stability of all countries in the Middle East, including Israel”, and citing his expulsion of Israeli diplomats following the Mossad assasination in Dubai. He studiously avoided comment on whether, should his brother win, he would be “man enough” to accept a cabinet role.
In a bagatelle indicative of his wider campaign, Andy Burnham suffered laptop trouble that left him out of much of the debate. He did manage to get in his message about improving opportunities for poorer people and a top dig at Clegg re: Alan Milburn’s defection: “I really don’t know why Clegg brought in Alan Milburn to advise on social mobility as he seems to be pretty skilled at social climbing himself”, and chiming in agreement with a questioner’s contention that it was “unfair” for David Miliband to be able to call on a sizeable war chest for the campaign. True to his expertise, Burnham was also the first to take up a detailed question on the iniquities of life as a carer.
Diane Abbott continued to set herself apart, branding her rivals “trapped in the New Labour dogma” on Trident, and issuing a thinly-veiled démarche to David M, warning of the poor electoral prospects of “just a youthful face fronting up the same old New Labour attitudes”. She argued that “it is difficult to see how a leader who has never done a job outside the Westminster bubble and who has come up through the New Labour machine can be seen as the change that the public wants to see”.
In answer to a question on special advisers, Abbott said: “I have no advisers on this campaign. I was never a New Labour minister, so I fell into the (possibly dangerous) [habit] of thinking for myself and writing my own speeches.”
She also rubbished George Osborne’s “neoliberal” stance on employment: that there will be “private-sector jobs waiting for people to step into” following the 600,000 public-sector job cuts slated for after the spending review.
Ed Balls put in a restrained and friendly turn, condensing his Bloomberg speech to a few lines and revealing that he is a shortly to meet a young penpal with Asperger’s syndrome. He also rebutted the “bully” tag: “If you have a surname like mine, you know what bullying is like when you are a child. I hate bullies, I think they are cowards.”
Balls also took the opportunity to attack the idea that the next leader should appeal to the right-wing press, saying: “If the price we pay for that is Labour supporters saying ‘You’re all the same’ and not turning out in the election, then that seems to me a pretty unwise way to choose a leader to win elections.”
Each lively hustings event reveals more about the candidates, and today’s debate survived the transition online well. The candidates as a group seemed to attract a positive reponse from the often catty Mumsnetters.
The next debate will be at the TUC in Manchester on 13 September.
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