To ask you what you would like to say to the Labour Party leadership?

[happyon]

This is a bit of a TAAT, but I didn't want to take the other excellent thread in only one direction, so here is a new one.

I'm a member of the Labour Party and I know there are other members here and plenty of voters. I also know that there's a world of rage out there about what this government is doing to this country and how ineffectually Labour seem to be responding.

I suspect that important Labour types will read this if get enough people involved. They need to listen to us or we will have to deal with another Tory government.

I'll begin by saying that I want Labour to:

Support a living wage for everyone, in all parts of the country. Immediately.

I wouldn't want Ed Milliband as a leader. Change the leader of the Labour Party and put in someone with a bit of charisma and you will get more votes. I have no faith in the current party despite voting labour all my adult life. Not sure who to vote for in the next election!

Give us universal childcare!

I'm not sure complulsory voting changes much to be honest. Political culture in Australia doesn't seem the better for it and there is no 'none of the above option' there. What is good, though, is that they hold elections at the weekend so that more people can make it to the polling booths.

Labour: please defend the NHS. This is the right thing to do and a sure vote winner. Why can't you seem to see this?

Ed miliband isn't the right leader.

I think leaders with charisma are part of the problem, Southsea. I want politicians with principles, who stand for something, who are not tossed on the seas of popular policy. Love him or hate him, we all knew what Tony Benn stood for.

I think Miliband could step up and be a good prime minister. He's from a good socialist background, he's more serious and conscientious than those idiots in office now and, IME, that's what we need. Not some blingy PR man like Blair - a serious leader who understands why and for whom Labour came into being.

That im too young to vote for them because of some weird class tribal sense of identity so perhaps they should come up with a real reason for me to vote for them.

That just because i wont vote tory/ukip doesn't mean i will vote for them.

It isnt good enough to run a political party on the basis that you are marginally better than some other really awful political parties.

I think leaders with charisma are part of the problem, Southsea. I want politicians with principles, who stand for something, who are not tossed on the seas of popular policy

Completely agree, temporarily. What good is charisma or being able to shoot your opponent down with words when the country's in such a fucking mess?

"Betray" his brother? Like David had a divine right to it? They both stood in an open election and Ed won. I voted for him because I didn't want the Blairism lite that David embodied.

Let's stop focussing on personalities and discuss policies. I am with PPs about reversing the appalling inequalities in the benefits system.

What maid said!
Give me some options!
Have some actual polices!
Close tax loopholes.
Save the NHS and stop them closing ambulance stations.
Save state education and disband ofsted as not fit for purpose
Get rid of balls as shadow chancellor - he is a knob

be honest about why you were voted out, war in iraq and overspending
most people are not left or right wing they are centre, moving wither further to right or left makes any party virtually unelectable
they want work to pay not benefits to increase, they are worried about immigration, cost of living, affordable housing and jobs, people also want the state to stop nannying them about parenting diet etc etc etc

stop thinking in generalisations bankers and businesses bad most other groups good

not all families are hard working not all the rich are exploiters most people are not on the breadline most are not rich, we may not want eton old boys neither do we want champagne socialists

the vast majority do not want to pay more taxes, study after study has shown that being just £500 a year better off will make most people switch allegiance you need to convince people having messed up you can be trusted with economy and when things improve you will reduce deficit not just increase spending

Cresent I think it was a case of be careful of what you wish for. I honestly think he was swept along with the leadership challenge and honestly now regrets it.

we need charisma and substance. not either/or!

My whole family was staunch blind Labour supporters, working class roots from up north.

They are all fed up and sick to death of Labour. Feel betrayed, they have the poorest among us and they will never ever ever vote labour again.

The Labour party died and was buried along with John Smith. It has not had an honest and effective leader since.

Please, can we keep these coming? I don't know how else to make them listen.

They should look to this week's Oxfam report and recognise that there is more to be gained by stressing our similarities and common cause than in indulging in the current trend for splitting us into opposed groups - the discourse of scroungers, shirkers, squeezed middle, hard working families blah blah.
I don't know what most people want, but I suspect it's

• quality NHS services. GPs you could get an appointment with out of office hours would be a huge step forwards.
• good, safe, clean, reliable public transport
• a great local school in every locality with happy staff
• affordable housing and the recognition that a home is a home, and should be everyone's right
• clean, affordable energy
• work that pays and rights at work
• community projects, eg gardens, farms, clean ups, parks, etc - just little things that are nice and make this neoliberal world feel a bit less alienating and shitty

Has anyone tweeted or emailed them the link?

Ed Milliband. Please fuck off. You inhabit a tiny corner of North London where middle class people pretend to give a shit about the working classes. You are metropolitan, Londoncentric, chattering class fuckwit. You are destroying the Labour Party with you inanne, ineffective policies and leadership at a time when the country needs strong opposition to the Tories. It's a tragedy that you beat andy burnham in the leadership contest because he is a man who actually understands ordinary people and their problems. Unfortunately for andy, he didn't come from an 'intellectual' political dynasty. Attacking tory policies should be like shooting fish in a barrel for any half decent labour leader but you haven't landed a single blow on cameron thanks to the fact you're completely fucking unsuited to the job, contrary to what your fuycking ego and fucking cronies have told you.

Get rid of Milliband. We don't care about you wanting to be nice people and not upset your leader, we care about getting rid of this awful Tory government, get it, so grow up and REPLACE MILLIBAND with someone who actually believes in something and has the courage to speak out.
Being in opposition isn't supposed to be about keeping a low profile in case you say something that alienates a small portion of the electorate. It's about speaking out against the awful things the Government are doing and trying to influence things even when you're not in power. And deciding what you actually care about and want to do, and making those things your policies. Rather than, you know, not criticising anything the Tories do because TORY VOTERS might not like it. Anybody not Tory has felt completely abandonned over the past few years.

Andy Burnham is very likeable but still cut from similar new labour cloth. Ditto the whole front bench, most of the back benches. Can't think of many labour MPs with much charisma or ability to construct an alternative to the Tories. The gooduns are all dead and gone (Robin Cook) And then there are disastrously unlikeable ex lefties like Claire Short (Iraq twattery) or Dianne Abbot (smug)
Tom Watkins shows some fire.
Chaka is dishy but wishy washy.
All crap, blame the selection panels.

Just stop being so crap and stand up for what you believe in - loudly! Lots of people in this country believe that the notion of paying taxes to create a support system for those who need it - from cradle to grave - is the hallmark of a decent society. Stop being so wussy - the vision being sold to us by the Tories stinks to high heaven and deserves to be ripped to little pieces by anyone with a brain and a heart that's still functioning. But where the hell are Labour's big guns?

I also think the party is fiddling round the edges because there's still a deep-seated belief that a properly left wing alternative would be unelectable. Bollocks to that - have you SEEN how discontented the majority of the population are with shiny-shiny politics conducted by the same old elites? After a global economic crisis brought about by unregulated banks?
With the rich just getting richer...and richer...and richer. I mean how bad do you think it really has to get before you plan to move back towards the left again?

This is not the US - we don't want the equivalent of the Republican/Democrat game. So please - get back to your roots and remember what you are FOR. It may also be time to grovel for forgiveness for going to war against the will of the masses and the UN on trumped up intelligence because your leader at the time thought he was the Messiah and had forgotten about this little thing called democracy. Oh and honesty. That one has still not been forgotten about.

PS And reverse the rise in tuition fees. It's a very expensive disaster in administrative terms, its wrecking social mobility and its turning one of the things that the UK does better than anyone else in the world - universities- into a series of second-rate businesses where all that matters are immediate efficiencies. This is not how great scientists, artists, journalists, scholars or other kinds of thinkers come to be.

For God's sake, have some guts and REVERSE IT. It would be the best red flag you could wave about actually standing for something different to the next generation.