Wednesday 14 July 2010

The labour party leadership race

Good afternoon all

please do not read this if you are not into politics or find this at all boring in any way.

As some of you may or may not know i am a Labour party member in the UK and last night i attended my local branch meeting in Hertford.

Last night was a good debate by all of the branch of who we felt should become the next leader of the party.

There were speakers speaking for Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott. There was also a talk from someone who was a fan of David Milliband.
I as a new member found this debate very interesting and added my input wherever i could. The general feeling i got from the group was that no one felt there was one overall candidate that stood out I think we came to the conclusion Diane abbott although very good for the debate and good for the ballot. I think she is very happy sitting on the sidelines None of us felt she would be a strong enough leader with a lot of very leftist ideas. I think she is very liberal too which may appeal to some liberal democrat voters.
The trouble with some of the other candidates such as Ed balls and the Millibands there is the risk of being too closely linked to GOrdon Brown and Tony blair who were involved in a lot of in fighting. One i didnt mention there Ed Balls is one i've liked his style so far he has taken the fight to the tories and the lib dems, forming a almost personal fight with Michael Gove of the conservatives. I am a young voter and a young person interested in British politics and feel that a leader who has lots of passion and feels a lot of passion for things like Ed Balls does could be a asset. He has taken the closure of schools and the scraping of the building schools for the future scheme almost as a personal attak on himself and has taken it upon himself to fight back.

Whoever becomes the leader in September they will have to unite the party again and get everyone working in the same direction, We cant have anymore infighting, the electorat will just not accept it and will take a very dim view of us if we do.
Andy Burnham's idea of aspirational socialism is a interesting one, i am still not clear on what he means b y that, i think his idea of a living wage is a excellent idea and i think even if Andy does not become leader i think his ideas should be highly considered by whoever does become the eventual leader.

I have enjoyed going to local meetings, i also attend a meeting of Ware society of cogers where we discuss all sorts of things not just politics, i enjoy this too and like to raise some different points of interest that people can identify. I find i can gain a lot of confidence from speaking publicly and sharing and hearing other peoples views.

Next week i go on a tour of the houses of parliament on friday and i am looking forward to this. i have never been before so this should be fun and very interesting.

2 comments:

  1. Enjoy the houses of parliament. huge place, i think the first thing the new leader of the labour party has to do is to gain the respect and trust back of it's people and other supporters from other political parties, try to sway them to coming back to Labour.

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  2. You'll enjoy your tour- especially the house of lords!!! Really good blog there!! :)

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