Next leader of the Labour Party should be.....

[Richard]

Whoever Mandy and Campbell want

[Awol]

They need to go back to their left-wing routes and elect someone who has principles. Not one of these careerist Blairite boys.

Someone like Kinnock you mean? The UK is not and never has been a Socialist country so you either go for idealistic leftism and eternal opposition, or something more Blairite that appeals to small 'c' conservativism but retains a social democratic outlook. A fluffy tory party if you like.

The danger for Labour is that the Lib/Cons succeed and evolve over the course of this Parliament into just that. Going hard left will always appeal to a core vote of socialists but most of the country will be repulsed.

It does appear that the political ground is fluid again and we may get something new after all. If I was a Labour supporter I'd be very worried just now.

[Gringo]

If I was a Labour supporter I'd be very worried just now.

They said the same about labour in 1987 and about tories in 2001

[Awol]

If I was a Labour supporter I'd be very worried just now.

They said the same about labour in 1987 and about tories in 2001

Well they were right, I can't imagine many Labour fans fancying 10 years in opposition.

Despite the fact their MP's are opposed to it, a full PR system would be the only vehicle to give the hard left any say in national government, imo.

[mykeyb]

It looks like both of the Milly Bros could be standing for the job.

[markavfc40]

It'll be David Milliband especially now Alan Johnson has ruled himself out and publicly backed him.

Great opportunity for the next leader as this coalition of Cons/Libs will last no longer than 12-18 months before turning very sour and I can see another General election by October 2011. Medium - Long term the Con/Lib coalition will be very good for Labour as the Libs will now be tarred with the same brush as the Tories and many Lib supporters will never forgive them.

[Awol]

It'll be David Milliband especially now Alan Johnson has ruled himself out and publicly backed him.

Great opportunity for the next leader as this coalition of Cons/Libs will last no longer than 12-18 months

Two points,

- If this fixed term Parliament idea is legislated for then they'll be in for the next five years.

- Over the coming months the public are going to be left in doubt as to how much of a mess we are in and exactly who made it. It won't just be coming from "Tory boys" either, when Osborne is giving us all the bad news he'll have Cable standing by his shoulder nodding gravely. The public won't forget that image in 12-18 months, in fact given what's coming I'd imagine it will be seared onto the minds of an entire generation.

a Labour Government = economic disaster. This time and everytime they get into power, as history shows.

[LJRM050389]

It will be David Milliband

Id like one of Burnham, Ed Milliband and Cruddas!

Harman also if she was standing!

Actually Ill say Andy Burnham is my prefered choice, looking forward to being able to vote on this!

[knoppy1987]

Bono

[villaajax]

David Milliband

[shambles]

Willie Walsh.

[Richard]

Willie Heck

[Dale]

Someone that will take the Labour party back to its roots. The new Labour project was a case of '**** the core vote who else have they got'... Need to go back to them and be the Labour party not a set of pseudo Tories.

I went with Ed Milliband who appears to be more in that vain than David. Crudas is a good shout though.

[Richard]

If Labour lurch to the left they'll be out for 3 terms until they realise their error and try again

[Condimentalist]

If Labour lurch to the left they'll be out for 3 terms until they realise their error and try again

If they don't go at least some way left then they end up as they are now; the Liberal Democrats plus authoritarianism. We know this now, and they won't win again with that message.

[mjmooney]

If Labour lurch to the left they'll be out for 3 terms until they realise their error and try again

If they don't go at least some way left then they end up as they are now; the Liberal Democrats plus authoritarianism. We know this now, and they won't win again with that message.

This. You can argue that democratic socialism "won't work" (whatever that means), but that doesn't mean there aren't voters out there who want it (and don't currently have that option).

[Hanky]

Johnson or David Miliband. Depends which way they want to approach it. Johnson has the likeability factor but then Miliband looks as if he has the smooth appraoch etc.

[kidlewis]

Johnson or David Miliband. Depends which way they want to approach it. Johnson has the likeability factor but then Miliband looks as if he has the smooth appraoch etc.

johnson ruled himself out didn't he? and backed David Milli

[Hanky]

Johnson or David Miliband. Depends which way they want to approach it. Johnson has the likeability factor but then Miliband looks as if he has the smooth appraoch etc.

johnson ruled himself out didn't he? and backed David Milli

If he did then David Miliband should get it.

[snowychap]

An opinion on Ed's speech from Liberal Conspiracy:

The unfairness of Ed Miliband

Since the election there have been a slew of former Labour ministers keen to tell us that Labour needs to change by listening to the voters and their concerns. The speeches and articles are sprinkled with anecdotes from conversations that these ex-ministers had with voters in their constituencies. In many cases it is obvious that going and talking to voters had been a rather novel activity.

Ed Miliband’s speech today, in which he announced himself as a candidate for Labour leader, gave two particularly obnoxious examples of this genre. On immigration, he announced that:

But the truth is that immigration is a class issue. If you want to employ a builder it’s good to have people you can take on at lower cost, but if you are a builder it feels like a threat to your livelihood.

And we never had an answer for the people who were worried about it.

When competition is driving down your wages and your pension rights, saying globalisation is good for you and for the economy as a whole is an example of what I mean about becoming a technocrat. Because it is a good answer for economists but it is no answer for the people of Britain.

So, for that voter in my constituency, and many others, we need to rediscover our sense of progressive mission.

And on what he charmingly calls “people at the other end of society”:

And if we didn’t do enough to enforce fairness at the top, nor did we do enough to enforce it at the bottom. I am a great defender of the welfare state. It is what a civilised society depends upon.

But the night before the election I was in my constituency and I met a guy who had done well under Labour.

And he said, look, I am not voting for you. I’ve voted Labour all my life but I am working all the hours that God sends to make a decent living, and yet, he felt, that there are people down the street who could work but were not doing so.

Now we know we did act on this issue, but perhaps too late. We have hard thinking to do

We need to re-found the welfare state: not just on need, but also on the original Beveridge mission of responsibility and contribution.

Firstly, Miliband’s responses to these concerns are waffle and drivel (what’s a “sense of progressive mission” when it is at home? How should we “re-found the welfare state”?)

But more than that, he treats migrant workers and unemployed people as unPeople, unworthy of mention except as a problem who need to be dealt with by the Labour Party adopting different policies.

In the cause, ironically, of “fairness”.

This is the Margaret Hodge c. 2006 approach, where an out of touch government minister goes and visits the little people in the provinces for the first time in many years and finds that they hold different opinions from people at Westminster, and announces that something must be done.

It is not “fair” for wannabe Labour leaders to repeat right-wing rhetoric and call for their party to make life even harder for migrant workers and unemployed people, and as Barking in 2006 showed, it isn’t effective either.

“Addressing concerns” about immigration led to Labour ministers passing laws to lock children up and force people to leave Britain through the threat of starvation. Under any conceivable definition of a “progressive mission” we need a different and more humane approach.

Miliband should take his own advice, and learn from Labour’s successful campaigns in the recent elections. In the areas where Labour were successful, they didn’t spend their time going on about the need to change immigration policy or welfare reform.

Instead they mobilised volunteers – from all sections of the community including migrants and unemployed people – to help people, take up and sort out problems, and do effective grassroots campaigning all year round, with hard-working candidates rooted in their communities.

Labour needs a leader who understands that this is what is needed, and who is committed to making sure that we campaign in every community and that our policies nationally reflect and draw on the experience of people at the grassroots. That’s the way to make Britain fairer.