Published: June 10th 2010 - at 6:41 pm

It was great having Diane there. I’m not sure she wants to win. But it would be seriously good to have her up against Nick Clegg at Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions, not least because she has an outstanding record on liberty.

She must be part of Labour’s front bench even if she doesn’t lead it.

David Miliband is the candidate to beat, the most committed to power and appealing, therefore, to the Labour councilors and its machines. He represents continuity with Blair in his air and appeal.

His brother, by contrast, whose answers on Iraq were powerful, is the closest to a change candidate, wanting to “turn the page” on Blair and Brown. While Diane is the most different, she is also, as she said, a long-time Labour traditionalist. Ed Miliband was the least tribal and seemed to have best grasped that the world has changed.

Andy Burnam apparently looked good on television but is floundering, out of his depth and appeals to the worst kind of Labourism. His holding out still for the invasion and conquest of Iraq is, apart from anything else (ie the fundamental issues), absurd and amateurish – how would he tell President Obama that he was wrong to have opposed the war!

Ed Balls was a mixture of the bullying and the reasonable. He makes much of listening but it doesn’t feel as if it would be a pleasure talking to him. Yet he can make practical arguments that are compelling. I liked the way he said if we were going to have all the democratic reforms the Miliband brothers were talking about, why not go for a written constitution so there wouldn’t be all the confusions that accompany reforms in Britain.

There was no discussion of the expenses crisis, the corruption of politics on their patch and of their colleagues (see Gerry Hassan’s post, below) let alone the possibility that David Miliband covered up British involvement in torture.

In his concluding remarks the hopeless Burnham praised the fact there had been no recriminations or introspection! But the media and the Coalition will ensure that Labour’s failure as a government is going to be a big feature of the new five years. Taking a credible measure of what indeed went wrong as well as what was good will be essential for any chance of electoral recovery.

Above all there was no engagement with the fact that if Labour wants to use the state and government to improve peoples lives, they are handling something that is very dangerous and potentially oppressive and open to misuse even if (big if) your own intentions are faultless.

Thirteen years in office has created a generation of Labour politicians who are serious about achieving and know something about doing so, or failing to do so.

If the fifty planned hustings become repetitions of fixed positions, as they are all too likely to be, the candidates will die of boredom and the chance of renwal will be replaced by a banal fight for power over a party that faces ten years of opposition.

A longer version of this article is at OurKingdom

About the author
Anthony Barnett is a regular contributor, and editor of the blog Our Kingdom. Also a founder member of OpenDemocracy and Charter 88. He co-organised the Convention on Modern Liberty.
· Other posts by Anthony Barnett


Story Filed Under: Blog ,Labour party ,Westminster

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1. Liberal Conspiracy

   Last night's Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture? http://bit.ly/92XmdG

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