
Billy Bragg: Mr Miliband must be brave and bold on voting reform
Billy Bragg, in an exclusive article for Left Foot Forward, argues that the new Labour leader Mr Miliband must be brave and bold on the AV referendum next year.

Billy Bragg, in an exclusive article for Left Foot Forward, argues that the new Labour leader Mr Miliband must be brave and bold on the AV referendum next year.

Several of my Labour-supporting friends have a spring in their step – level in the polls at last, as revealed by yesterday’s Reuters/Ipsos-MORI poll.
This week MPs have voted in support of a Bill which would mean that next May the country would get to decide on whether they want to stick with FPTP (first past the post) or switch to AV (Alternative Vote). While this may not have been the choice many of us who support a more proportional system wanted we shouldn’t underestimate its significance.

George Osborne is the most popular Conservative Chancellor ever. But he has not reached the heights of either Labour’s Denis Healey or Gordon Brown.

Today’s ICM poll for the Guardian puts the Labour party on level terms with the Conservatives for the first time since October 2007. But as noted by UK Polling Report’s Anthony Wells, “the Guardian’s report concentrates upon the findings ontest

In his Fabian Essay, reported in this morning’s Guardian, Ed Miliband has written that the loss of less-affluent voters cost Labour the general election, and said that his rejection of “New Labour nostalgia” made him the modernising candidate in the leadership election.

Labour members and public disagree on Labour’s election defeat. While the recession is common to both, the public put immigration & Gordon Brown ahead of other factors.

In today’s YouGov Labour leadership survey, Lord Mandelson is the only Labour figure to have a negative net asset rating – a result, no doubt, of his memoirs being released.

Oona King and Ken Livingstone last night clashed on substantial ‘Old Labour’ v ‘New Labour’ territory.

Labour must put community, organisation and compassion at the heart of its policies if it is to prevent the Coalition from keeping the party out for the next decade, Jon Cruddas has said today.