David Miliband on the Campaign Trail

I will stand as a candidate in the forthcoming contest for leadership of the Labour Party. I do so with humility in face of the responsibility this post brings and passion for the causes and values that led me to join our party.

I am standing because I believe I can lead Labour to rebuild itself as the great reforming champion of social and economic change in this country.

We must be proud of what we have achieved but this is a new era with new challenges and new opportunities. No longer a government we must become a movement for change, renewed at every level, debating every issue.

I look forward to a contest that is open, comradely, generous and a credit to the party. We must renew but we must be ready for government. We live in a new political world, and the responsibility of office may return sooner than people might think.

A good leader listens as well as leads. Tomorrow I will begin a conversation with members, MPs and trade unionists in the party, but also members of the general public, especially in seats we lost and those we must fight to hold on to.

The decision of the Liberal Democrats to join a Conservative Government is a momentous one. It creates an enormous responsibility for the Labour Party, revitalised in the right way, to represent all shades of progressive opinion and present itself as an alternative government. That is the task that I look forward to.

I will formally launch my campaign next week. In the meantime I hope that you will use this site to join my team by filling in the form below, let me know your ideas on the future of our party and, when the campaign gets underway, campaign with me for Labour and Britain’s future.

I am really looking forward to working with you.

For more information please visit my campaign launch site

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The man fixing his flat tyre in Glasgow North summed up the SNP: “they don’t care about us”. His main beef was the cancellation of the airport rail link.

He was symptomatic of voters across the city who had either voted SNP last time or who are tempted by them, but who believe that the protests against the government in London are hollow and their ability to take the right decisions very limited indeed.

Margaret Curran is fighting a very strong campaign to win back Glasgow East. Everyone knows her from her work as MSP and everyone respects her for going back to fight for the seat the SNP gained in June ’08.

I have just finished a question and answer session with members of the large East Renfrewshire Jewish community. Interestingly, about three quarters of the questions were domestic not internationally focused – from social care to immigration. Jim has got huge admiration for his work in the constituency as MP and for his work as Scottish Secretary. Judging by the reception he got at the Asda at Newton Mearns everybody knows him!

Scotland is used to multi-party politics. Our party is on the up.

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I have been at the Usdaw conference today. The trade union movement deserves our thanks.  For the contribution to the improvement of employees’ well being, for the contribution to making workplaces fairer and more prosperous, and for the contribution to Labour’s election campaign – not just in money, but in the footsoldiers who are taking our message out to where it matters, onto doorsteps, and in the ideas that make our record proud and our offer progressive.

There are two battles emerging in this campaign.  The first is against the malign rhetoric of broken Britain.  The Tories say we have had 13 years of broken Britain, the Liberals decry 65 years of so-called failure.  Neither is true.  The transformation of Britain since 1945 and the big changes since 1997 show how the politics of progress can triumph over inertia.

The second is between process and policy, with Nick Clegg and David Cameron preferring to game the outcome of the election to shape people’s votes rather than talk about the policies which will shape the future of the country and should decide the election.

It is very important that we sort out the rhetoric from the reality.  First, the party with the most money to spend, Ashcroft’s Conservatives, have lost the most votes in the campaign.  Why?  Because the debates have crystallised doubts about David Cameron and the Tory party. The more people see the less they are convinced.  He was the fashion…once.  But fashions pass.

Second, the public are being bombarded with information as never before but are undecided as never before.  I am convinced that this campaign will not be decided until the final 48 hours when the dust settles from this blizzard of activity.

David Cameron has given up urging a positive vote for his party and is instead calling on them to vote against a party, the Hung Parliament party, which isn’t fielding any candidates in this election.  It is the ultimate symbol of the hollowness of the Tory offer.  When you insist that the deficit is the number one priority and then announce a series of tax cuts, campaign against big government but for the NHS, tell of your concern about climate change but reject EU engagement, proclaim your support for one-nation Conservativism but target the North-East for spending cuts, the  contortions become too great. David Cameron has become a victim of his own inconsistencies.

Meanwhile Nick Clegg is running the oldest campaign in the book.  A plague on both your houses.  But while you can campaign on an anti-politics ticket but you can’t govern on it. You can campaign against Trident but you can’t govern for a debate about the alternatives.  It’s not enough to be against things; government is about being clear what you are for and how to deliver it.

Labour’s offer is clear.  The PM calls it fighting for fairness.  The determination to build a fair society rather than emote about a big society.  A fair society of powerful people able to be authors of their own life stories because they have effective government and regulated markets at their service, empowering them not overpowering them.

If you share our values of fairness, decency and social justice then vote for the party that can put those values into practice.  Don’t try and game the result.  Vote for what you value.  Vote Labour.

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