Rob Watson's blog

As the somewhat dull Labour Leadership contest trundles on, and the fallout from the bruising General Election defeat begins to settle, I have found myself thinking about who will be the best candidate for the Labour Leadership. Who has the strongest platform and the best chances of offering the party a renewed sense of purpose and a way forward. After considering a couple of the candidates, I am now edging towards supporting David Milliband. Here are a couple of thoughts about why.

Labour supporters, and the left in general, can usually be defined in two ways. Not left versus right, or old versus new, but scepticism versus pragmatism. On the one hand there is a strong and proud history in the Labour movement of people who are able to give a clear and well justified account of what is wrong with the world. These people can easily make recommendations as to how it can be put right. But as sceptics they tend to see opposition as a good thing, a chance to rediscover their purity of conviction and a chance to reconnect with their highest virtues.

Conservatives in Leicestershire are split over national and local education policy after the new coalition government made a commitment to offer all schools Academy status. Speaking to the Leicester Mercury, Mr Ould has claimed that "He was not convinced academies would be as independent as promised and would have less of a voice if they had to report to the Government. He said: "If schools do not have to answer to us they will have to answer to Westminster, so this seems to be switching one control for another."

And so the process begins for the Labour Party to redefine itself after what has been a crushing and bruising defeat. As leading figures in the party start the long-drawn out process of declaring their candidacy, and others start to make their views known on who they will back, the deep realisation is only now beginning to settle-in that Labour was comprehensively beaten at the General Election, and that on a national level we are a discredited force in the eyes of large parts of the electorate. While the last few days have been the calm before the storm, with all eyes fixed on the love-in between Cameron and Clegg, media attention will soon start to turn to the question of - not how did they win it - but how did we loose it?

The first question I would ask prospective candidates for the party leadership is one that all parties should ask themselves on a constant basis. What is our purpose? What is the Labour Party in the business of doing? And why would we do things differently than other people in other parties?

While this election result, at first glance, seems like a big hit, and while it seems that it might be hard to recover from this hit after so much effort and conviction has been spent defending the ground that Labour has built up against the odds of the past. Keep in mind, instead, that the Tories have not made decisive progress. Even after thirteen years of solid Labour government; after the worst recession in sixty years; after our Prime Minister has received a personal, aggressive weekly bombardment from an arrogant and self-defined Tory clique; after all Ashcroft's millions; after Murdock's stranglehold and the free ride from the right wing press, and more particularly, after the calamity of our bust electoral system, the Tories have not earned the right to govern.

Instead, as the only true champion of progressive politics, Labour now has the opportunity to refocus our beliefs and values and re-demonstrate that Labour is the only party who can campaign as an alliance of progressives who will:

I would like to take this opportunity, through the website, to thank those people who voted Labour at the General Election. While the result, nationally, was not what we had hoped for, we will continue to campaign to protect our public services and for a fairer society.
Yours faithfully, John Morgan
Labour Candidate, Rutland & Melton

Rutland & Melton Labour today criticised the Conservative Education Spokesman, Michael Gove for 'double-speak' on secondary education policy. Speaking on the Today Programme on BBC Radio Four, Mr Gove said that the Conservative's policy of 'Free Schools' would allow parents to set up their own local schools that would be more 'responsive' to the needs of local parents.

Rob Watson said 'This has not been the experience of parents in Melon Mowbray, who's say in education has been brushed aside by the Conservative run Leicestershire County Council. Rather than listening to parents in Melton, the Tories have ignored their wishes for small local schools within walking distance, and instead are creating a huge super school in the north of Melton Mowbray. How can the Tories reconcile what they say nationally with what they do locally?'