Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The leadership contest

I attended Labour's NEC (National Executive Committee) today where we took decisions regarding the leadership contest and specifically the timeline.

At such an important stage, where we need to reinvigorate and rejuvenate our party, I believe a longer timetable will allow us as a party to have the debate we need to have and allow the candidates to set out their vision for our party. We have nothing to gain by rushing into electing a new leader.

The longer timeline will also allow as many new members to vote as possible. Since the formation of the Con Dem coalition the party has been overwhelmed by thousands and thousands of new members with over 13,000 joining, many of who have resigned from the Liberal Democrats. I am sure many thousands more will follow, and we have set the deadline at September 8 for new members joining to having voting rights.

It is truly sickening to see Cameron calling his coalition with Clegg a progressive alliance, but we all know that events of recent weeks have meant there is only one clearly progressive force in Britain and that is the Labour Party.

1 comment:

  1. Although we lost the election, we remain in far better shape than most of the "informed(!) pundits" predicted. I hope the contest remains constructive in tone (I'm confident it will) and am happy that there now appears to be a diverse field of candidates who should ensure that all the issues we need to discuss are aired.

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