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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

BBC Newsnight's Labour leadership hustings in Nuneaton - Politics live

Labour hustings
Labour hustings: from left, Yvette Cooper, Jeremy Corbyn, Liz Kendall and Andy Burnham Photograph: BBC 2

Summary and analysis

There are going to be endless Labour leadership hustings over the summer and, if you are already fed up with Andy Burnham’s tale about the man voting Ukip because he was the only person on his shift who spoke English, you had better get used to it. There was no obvious winner tonight, but the two candidates with most reason to be pleased are Jeremy Corbyn (because he has a distinctive message which many people seem to like) and Yvette Cooper (because she projected confidence and experience, and used her own experience well to defend Labour’s line on benefits). Andy Burnham was less sure-footed (he is getting mocked on Twitter for his “party comes first” answer), and Liz Kendall was the most direct on economic competence, but she did not sound like someone easily winning over the audience.

One problem is that the audience in the hall is not the same as the electorate in the leadership contest. The questioners in Nuneaton were pushing the candidates to the right, but most of them will probably not be voting in the leadership contest.

Storywise, one line stood out.

  • Liz Kendall explicitly committed herself to allowing the Labour party to hold an election to replace her if she was under-performing as leader. She has hinted at this before, but tonight she was explicit. Asked if she would resign if it looked as though Labour was going to lose under her leadership, she replied:

Yes, because more than anything I want Labour to win so we can change the country ... There are some MPs who are talking about having a new process whereby if colleagues think you are not doing well enough you can go. I have to go through that as a local Labour MP. We should have that for the Labour leadership too because above all we cannot put our values into practice unless we win.

Some figures in the party, like Lady Royall, the former Labour leader in the Lords, or Alastair Campbell, have been calling for the introduction of this kind of “break clause” into the party rules. But, as a move to boost her chances in the contest, Kendall’s declaration was blunted by the other candidates giving some support to the idea. Corbyn said there should be a return to the situation where the party leader is elected annually. Burnham said he would stand down if he was damaging the party, and he said the party rules already allowed leaders to be replaced. (They do, but it is not at all easy, and that procedure never gets used.) Cooper said the same, and made it clear she was not advocating a rule change. She said:

The last people who should be deciding what are the rules for this leadership contest are the people who are standing in the leadership contest. We should follow the rules that the party sets out.

That’s all from me.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Verdict from the Twitter commentariat

Skimming Twitter, it is clear that there was no clear “winner” tonight. By remarkable coincidence, many people’s views as to who did best overlapped very closely with who they rated beforehand. Some commentators were generally unimpressed, like the Economist’s Jeremy Cliffe.

For a more measured view, the Times’s Sam Coates’s summary is about as good as anyone.

Yvette Cooper has not stood out in previous hustings, but some commentators think she did best tonight. This is from the Times’s Jenni Russell.

Andy Burnham went into the hustings as frontrunnner, but he may have stumbled a little, particularly with his line about the party coming first. This is from the Times’s Philip Collins.

Liz Kendall confirmed her reputation as the moderniser. This is from the RSA’s Anthony Painter.

Perhaps the real suprise was Jeremy Corbyn. As you would expect, Owen Jones was impressed.

But his opponents will be surprised by how well he went down with the audience.

Jon Stone has an explanation.

And Tim Mongomerie has a diferrent one

But the FT’s Janan Ganesh cannot forgive his dress sense.

Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn Photograph: BBC 2

I’m not sure who the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush has been in touch with, but they weren’t impressed.

And that’s it. I’ll post a summary and reaction soon.

Question 6 - A leadership "break clause"

Q: Would you resign if it were clear that Labour would lose under you?

Yes, says Kendall. She thinks she is the leader the Tories fear.

Q: What would that be? Ten points behind in the polls?

Kendall says she has to be reselected as a Labour MP. The leader should undergo the same thing.

Q: So you would have a mid-term election, in 2018 or 2017?

Yes, says Kendall.

Corbyn says the leader should be re-elected every year. The system is there.

Burnham says he is someone with his feet on the ground. He would resign in those circumstances. He goes to the pub before he goes to football matches. He listens to what people say.

Q: Would you change the rules?

Burnham says the party has rules that enable this to happen.

The party comes first.

The country comes first, says Cooper.

She says the party has these rules. The people in the contest should not be the one deciding the rules.

Q: So you would not support a change in rules?

The option is already there, says Cooper.

Burnham says the perception articulated by the questioner is widely felt. People feel claimants are getting too much. But there is a campaign to demonise people on benefits. And the disabled are being penalised. That is cruel. In the end, the best answer to this is more jobs, and more good jobs.

Q: If I lost my job, I would lose my house. Yet others are in a different position, and get everything paid for.

Burnham says the system does not work as well as it should do.

Corbyn says people should not become homeless because they lose their job.

Cooper says the questioner needs help when she loses her job.

The questioner says she did. But she is having to pay it back, because she got too much.

Corbyn finds the benefits street mentality unpleasant. He meets people every week who have gone to the availability for work tests. Some people commit suicide because they are told to work. Why have we got this system? Sanctions are too harsh.

Question 5 - Benefits

Q: How are you going to change the sense of entitlement that applies in the benefits system? Some people get a great deal of money.

Cooper says when she was in government she brought in the future jobs fund. People had to work, or not get benefit. But 20 years ago she was ill herself. She had to claim, because she could not work. But she would not criticise people for being work-shy.

Q: Have some of the other candidates done this?

Cooper says we need to use responsible language.

Kendall says there is a problem for Labour. She met someone in Wales yesterday who said the party did not believe in work.

She says she believes in the contributory principle.

She says the Tory work programme is not working. People can and must work if they are fit and able to do so.

Cooper says the debt and deficit have to come down. But it was the crisis that caused the deficit, not the other way round.

But we should not buy the Tory myth that it was doctors and nurses that caused Lehman Brothers to go bust.

Burnham says Labour did spent too much when it was in power.

But he does not support the Tory law. George Osborne is a chancer. He is putting politics above economics.

He says the Tories are balancing the books through cuts. Labour would do it through growth.

Updated

Question 4 - Budget surplus

Q: Is a budget surplus the most important economic objective?

No, says Corbyn. What is most important is to have a decent health service, good homes and jobs. Why are there so many people sleeping on the streets and begging. There should be a national crusade to solve the housing crisis. We need to reflate the economy.

Kendall says she does not agree with Corbyn. People did not trust us on this. Unless we balance the books, and get the debt down, people will not trust us. We should be supporting business; we should be supporting people who “bust a gut” to get on. We are too much a low-wage, low-skills economy.

Q: Would you back the Tory surplus law?

Kendall says there should be a surplus when times are good. Productivity is falling. Investment is the second lowest of G7 countries.

Burnham says no, he does not think a budget surplus is the most important thing.

Updated

Cooper says they all want a fairer society and a stronger economy. They want people’s kids to have an equal chance to get good jobs.

Burnham says he said the manifesto was the best one he had stood one because he had something to say to people on zero-hours contracts.

He says Sturgeon is a plain speaker. He is too. And she came into politics because she thought the distribution of power was unfair. He thinks that too. We heard this week firms apply a “poshness” test. That must change.

Corbyn says he has shared a platform with Sturgeon. She put forward a strong anti-austerity platform. Labour did not do that at the election.

Q: Do you seriously think you can win?

Corbyn says he was nominated. He is putting forward a point of view that people share. We are not about personality politics. People have had enough of that. We are about a movement, he says.

Question 3 - Leadership

Q: What qualities do you share with Nicola Sturgeon that could make you a good leader?

Cooper says, like Sturgeon, she has been consistent for many years. She cannot match her wearing high heels. But she thinks it would be really good to have a woman as Labour leader.

Q: So would you back Kendall?

Cooper say she is not backing anyone else.

Kendall says she is a woman. It is time to have a woman leader, and a woman prime minister. What makes a good leader? They must be tough, and say things that are difficult.

Good leaders set out a compelling vision of a better life, she says.

A member of the audience says he is worried for the future of the country.

Corbyn says, if it were not for the NHS, what kind of NHS would we have?

Migrants that come her contribute net to the economy, claim less and work. The problem is a shortage of housing.

Burnham says we have not done enough to prioritise technical education.

Burnham says Labour has been shy about tackling immigration. But we need immigrants, for example in the NHS.

He says this is what he meant about taking Labour out of the Westminter bubble. He met someone in the election voting Ukip because he was the only person at work who spoke English. If someone like that just sees a politician saying how good immigration is, they will think we are out of touch.

Question 2 - Immigration

Q: What are your plans to control borders and immigration?

Cooper says immigration is important. But it must be controlled. We need proper controls at the borders, and proper employment rules. Students can bring billions into the country. But we don’t want a system that is unfair. There should not be an arms race of rhetoric.

Q: Would you take away tax credits from immigrants?

Coopers says people who come here should not be able to claim for two years?

Q: But what about tax credits?

Cooper says they should not be able to claim in-work benefits too (ie, tax credits).

Kendall says she would take tax credits away from immigrants too. We need a points based system, like the one in Australia.

But she says she has seen the huge benefits immigration brings.

She will not out-Ukip Ukip, she says.

Q: I’m a fireman. We are faced with savage cuts. The Tories were going to continue cuts. What would Labour do? I voted Ukip because I did not think Labour would support us. It was a protest vote.

Kendall says we need strong public finances. We have to live within our means, and get the debt down. We should not be spending more on servicing debt than on education. That is not taking on Tory policies. They are Labour values. We cannot improve people’s life chances unless people trust us with money. That is a basic test.

Updated

Corbyn says people are looking for fundamental change that gives them real security.

Cooper says she makes no apology for running a £100bn department (DWP) or setting up Sure Start. But we need to move on. We cannot just do what we did in the past.

Burnham says Labour gave the market too much precedence. And it did not build enough homes.

Corbyn says he never considered himself part of New Labour. It promoted markets too much, and did not plan enough. And why did Blair get so close to Bush?

That gets a large round of applause.

Question 1- Blair's legacy

Q: As an Old Labour supporter, how do we get away from the legacy of Tony Blair?

Burnham says he would not want to do that. Blair got many things right. He made mistakes, but he did a lot of good things.

Kendall says she is not Blairite, Brownite, old Labour, new Labour. She wants to be tomorrow’s Labour. But the lesson from 1945 and 1997 is that leaders must understand the future. We are living longer. Public services need to change. Policies that were right for 2010 wont’ be right for 2020.

Q: Have Burnham and Cooper got too much baggage?

Kendall says we need to move on. She does not have the baggage of the past.

Q: But the others have?

Kendall says she wants to move on.

Jeremy Corbyn says he has spent his time in the Commons standing up for justice, in the UK and around the world. He things Labour has been cowed by big business. He wants it to stand up for fairness and equality. We are moving in the wrong direction. Let’s turn it around.

Liz Kendall says she grew up in Watford. Her mum was a primary school teacher, her dad left school at 16. She went to a state school, then Cambridge. She was lucky. But she wants everyone to be able to get on. She wants to build a stronger economy and a fairer society.

Andy Burnham says the country is more divided than ever. We have a prime minister who stoked separation in his own interests. Burnham says he will be different; he cares about Britain. He will take Labour out of the Westminster bubble. People wants jobs, and he will be a leader who leaves no one behind.

Yvette Cooper makes her opening statement.

This is about who can be Labour leader, and Labour prime minister. It is a tough job. It needs experience and new ideas. Labour has to change. It was too narrow. It lost votes to the SNP, Ukip, the Tories and Green. She is not standing because she wants to be something. She wants to do something: create jobs, and create a fairer Britain.

Kuenssberg says everyone in the audience is “open to the possibility of voting Labour”.

Newsnight Labour leadership hustings

Laura Kuenssberg opens the programme.

She says the next Labour leader will have to win back people in places like Nuneaton.

And she is introducing the candidates now.

There are profiles of them all on the Newsnight live blog.

This is from a Newsnight producer.

Yvette Cooper is going first.

Jeremy Hunt says Liz Kendall should be Labour leader

It is often assumed at Westminster that Liz Kendall is the candidate who would worry the Tories most, on the grounds that she is most likely to shift Labour firmly away from Milibandism. If this is the case, then Jeremy Hunt’s comments tonight are probably best interpreted as an attempt to sabotage her campaign. He’s endorsed her.

This is what he told LBC.

I actually really want the Labour party to move to the centre ground. Liz Kendall has said the Labour party needs to change and what she gets is massive criticism from the rest of the party ... I would like to see the Labour Party change because I think that would be good for the country. I just don’t see any evidence of it.

Incidentally, this tweet from Theo Bertram, who used to work for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, is a good reminder why anything one party briefs to the media about the candidate it “most fears” is worth taking with a pinch of salt.

In Nuneaton the candidates are drawing lots to decide in what order they make the opening statements.

Here’s the set for the Labour hustings.

Ed Balls takes up post at Harvard

On a related note, the Press Association has some news about one of the candidates’ husband.

Ed Balls is to head to the United States for a new role as an academic researching global financial stability, it has been confirmed.

The former shadow chancellor, who was the most high-profile Tory scalp at the general election, has been made senior fellow at the prestigious Harvard university.

Balls will be expected to be on campus for at least three to four weeks each term over the course of his year-long unpaid appointment at the Kennedy School.

His brief covers European integration, international patterns of economic growth, investment, productivity, wages and employment.

John Haigh, co-director of the centre and executive dean of Harvard Kennedy School, praised the former MP, a Harvard graduate, for the “enormous depth and breadth” of his work in the public sector.

He said: “We’re delighted to welcome Ed Balls to the Mossavar-Rahmani Business and Government centre.

“Ed brings enormous depth and breadth of experience in the public sector and we’re confident he will make a valuable contribution to our students, to the centre, and to Harvard more generally.”

Balls, who was defeated by 422 votes in Morley and Outwood, made it clear last month that he would not be “dashing back” to frontline politics.

He ruled out playing a role in his wife Yvette Cooper’s Labour leadership campaign and said he planned to “do more to help the rest of the family”.

Ed Balls (right) with Nick Robinson at the launch of Robinson’s new book this week.
Ed Balls (right) with Nick Robinson at the launch of Robinson’s new book this week. Photograph: Oliver Rudkin/REX Shutterstock/Oliver Rudkin/REX Shutterstock

Updated

Here’s where the Labour hustings are taking place.

The BBC have selected the audience. There will be about 100 people there. It’s a mix of Labour voters and people who are “open to voting Labour”, according to the BBC.

The candidates will all make short opening statements before it opens up for questions.

Newsnight’s Laura Kuenssberg is presenting.

Remember Nuneaton on election night? It was 38th on a list of Labour target seats and it was going to be the first Tory marginal to declare. The most traumatic moment of the night for Labour came at 10pm, when David Dimbleby read out the results of the exit poll. But one of the other most traumatic moments came when Nuneaton declared, shortly before 2am. Here’s how I wrote it up on our election blog.

Here are the Nuneaton results in full.

Marcus Jones (C) 20,827 (45.52%, +4.01%)

Vicky Fowler (Lab) 15,945 (34.85%, -2.03%)

Alwyn Waine (UKIP) 6,582 (14.39%)

Keith Kondakor (Green) 1,281 (2.80%)

Christina Jebb (LD) 816 (1.78%, -13.55%)

Paul Reilly (TUSC) 194 (0.42%)

Stephen Paxton (Eng Dem) 104 (0.23%)

C maj 4,882 (10.67%)

3.02% swing Lab to C

According to the BBC, the exit poll pointed to a Conservative to Labour swing in Nuneaton. But the swing actually went the other way.

John Dimbleby says that, on the basis of this, John Curtice is saying it is possible that the Conservatives could win an overall majority.

In other words, Nuneaton was the result that suggested that the exit poll had understated the extent of the Tory victory, and that David Cameron was going to win already.

That is why it is an appropriate place for Labour to hold a leadership hustings. There have been three hustings already with these candidates already, a private one at the parliamentary Labour party, a Fabian Society one that you can read about here, and a GMB one that you can read about here, but this is the first since nominations closed (and Mary Creagh dropped out) and the first to be shown live on TV.

It starts at 7pm. I will be covering the build-up, reporting it live in detail as it happens, and then providing reaction, analysis and a summary at the end.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow

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