Labour leadership hustings - Webchat with Andy Burnham, Thursday 30 July, 2pm

[BojanaMumsnet]

Hello

We’re pleased to announce the final webchat in our Labour leadership hustings series. Andy Burnham will be joining us for a webchat on Thursday 30 July at 2pm.

Andy was elected MP for Leigh in 2001. In Government, he was Secretary of State for Health, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Chief Secretary to the Treasury. He was also Shadow Health Secretary under Ed Miliband’s leadership (and in that role ).

During the heated leadership campaign, Andy has warned that Labour is becoming 'frightened by its own shadow' and has had to fight back against allegations of sexism, due to a row about remarks made by one of his supporters.

Please do join us on Thursday at 2pm if you can, or post a question for Andy here in advance if you can’t.

Labour leadership voting is open until Thursday 10 September and the ballot results will be released on Saturday 12 September.

Thanks

MNHQ

[howtorebuild]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2422950-To-ask-how-much-are-Mumsnetters-owed-in-maintenence-arrears?msgid=55862862#55862862

[howtorebuild]

[grin]@Harriet Harman.

Thank you Harriet. It's good to know during busy times things are tidied as you go along.

[AskBasil]

Harriet, does Andy pitch in and do his round when it's time for a cup of tea?

[pastaofplenty]

Harriet - please will you answer my question then I can get 5/4 in questions answered (and my JC vest - hint, hint MNHQ) ... is Andy a good boss? Thank you

[didyouwritethe]

I think we should skip having the politicians on, and just have their nice, female gatekeepers on instead. Bet they're all MNers anyway, BFing away and stuffing themselves with biscuits.

[BeyondTheWall]

I'd like to know if Harriet is also in the media blackout zone that has not heard anything of a coup

[didyouwritethe]

Harriet, what kind of biscuits do you like?

What about the rest of the team? How many packets can you get through when the campaign is going well/badly?

[LuluJakey1]

Yet he found the time to answer questions without answering them. Should have used his time properly. He filled it with non-answers- typical glib politician of the kind I no longer want. Speaks a lot but says nowt!

[AskBasil]

No, tbh I don't think he can, unless Harriet answers every question.

That's the thing, I agree it's quite good that someone comes back to cover the gaps. But if you miss some of the gaps, people feel even more irritated than they did the first time round, because they accept that with only an hour, there will be gaps. They only get annoyed if multiple posters asked the same thing and it still wasn't answered in favour of the biscuit question.

Maybe the answer is to keep them prisoner until the thread reaches 1,000 posts?

[APlaceOnTheCouch]

I must be easily impressed. I quite like that one of his team took the time to try to provide answers to questions that he missed where he has stated a strong opinion in the past. I can't remember anyone else doing that after a web-chat.

[BeckerLleytonnever]

Thank you Harriet .

[ImperialBlether]

Jesus, he can't win, can he? He didn't have time to answer every question so people were complaining and now you're complaining that he sent someone else to refer us to other speeches he's made where he's covered unanswered questions.

What else could he have done?

[AskBasil]

Oh Lordy. Does this mean he knows he didn't impress us very much and he wants a second bite of the cherry?

I guess there's no reason why people shouldn't stay longer than their allotted hour or whatever it is. I'm not sure what the etiquette is with webchats. If they were enjoying it and wanted it to go on all night, I guess there's no rules about it?

But really to send a campaign worker to try and answer questions he didn't cover, will only irritate the people who don't feel he answered their question properly.

Can we get Nigel Farage next? He's running for the UKIP leadership campaign, isn't he?

[ImperialBlether]

[RowanMumsnet]

@ilovesooty

Harriet didn't see fit to elaborate on any of the stuff the other candidates didn't answer.

Isn't she supposed to be impartial?

Eek - not that Harriet! This is a member of staff on Andy Burnham's campaign

[ilovesooty]

Harriet didn't see fit to elaborate on any of the stuff the other candidates didn't answer.

Isn't she supposed to be impartial?

[derxa]

Harriet, I don't think you're doing Andy's campaign much good tbh.

[AndyBurnhamMP]

@jelliemint

Don't feel I'm learning much to be honest. Would like to know what you are proposing to do Andy, not just what you believe in.

Hi, Harriet here. If you want to learn more about Andy's plans, please take a look at the video or transcript of Tuesday's speech: www.facebook.com/andy4leader/videos/856427291118985/?permPage=1 and medium.com/@Andy4Leader/recapturing-the-ebd0d43f4ee2 Hope that helps!

[AndyBurnhamMP]

@badooby

Hello Andy

What's your personal take on how the leadership election has gone so weirdly haywire? I don't think anyone would have predicted we'd be in this position a few weeks ago, even given the shock of losing the election.

I'm guessing you have a fairly good handle on what Labour activists aHnd members are like; do you think this reaction against the mainstream was predictable - did you see it coming?

Hi Badooby, Harriet here. I thought you might be interested in Andy's recent speech on this: medium.com/@Andy4Leader/recapturing-the-ebd0d43f4ee2 (you can also watch it here: www.facebook.com/andy4leader/videos/856427291118985/?permPage=1)

[AndyBurnhamMP]

@BeckerLleytonnever

Hello.
Im going to ask you the same question I asked Jeremy Corbyn and Kendall and didnt get an answer to:

I want to know what Labour will do to help the disabled and their full time carers (who ''earn'' a pittance on carers allowance yet look after disabled 24/7).

For starters taking off the spare room tax for disabled as ''spare'' room is for medical equipment and the like.

And disabled and carers have high living costs as most are NOT helped by the so called services out there.

By all means sort out the wheat from the chaff regarding benefit scroungers from the genuine needy, especially the severely disabled (mentally and physically) and theior full time carers, lifelong carers

And I seriously hope so much the ''biscuit'' question is ignored as this is supposed to be a serious question thread!

Issues are more important than ''heat magazine'' questions!

Hi Becker, Harriet here. Andy was quoted in an article recently about his views on disability rights, and I thought you might be interested in what he had to say:

Burnham said: “I strongly support disability rights and object to any depiction of disabled people as ‘scroungers’. That kind of stigmatising language is wrong and should be challenged.

“I have said that some people have had a perception that Labour was about helping people who could work to live a life on benefits instead.

“I want to challenge that perception – but I also want to make sure that we do all we can to help those who can work into work.”

And he said that cuts to disability benefits “should be a red line for our party”.

He said: “That’s why I’ve come out against the cruel abolition of the Independent Living Fund. My basic principle is that we cannot justify cuts to income that cannot be replaced by work.”

Burnham said he had “concerns” about the use of benefit sanctions.

He added: “I’m not convinced that the sanctions regime operates fairly or consistently, and the government has ignored repeated calls for an independent review of the way in which they operate.

“There do not currently seem to be proper safeguards for vulnerable people, and some of the decisions made have been indefensible.”

He said he was “proud” of the last Labour government’s record on disability rights, increasing support for disabled people “so that those who couldn’t work and their children were pulled out of poverty, but we also increased the employment rate for disabled people by improving the support available to those who could work.

“However, in the last parliament, we didn’t do enough to defend disabled people from a range of damaging Tory policies, and under my leadership Labour will be a stronger voice for disabled people.”

[AndyBurnhamMP]

@ilovesooty

Ah well. I'm still no wiser on Andy's stance on equality and lgbt ivf issues. I can only continue to assume his Catholicism contributed to his voting record.

Hi there - this is Harriet from Andy's campaign team. I've noticed a few questions that Andy didn't get a chance to answer on topics he's spoken about recently, so Mumsnet has kindly given me his login details. I'm not going to put words in his mouth but I'll just point you to relevant material online. On LGBT issues, you might be interested in his recent interview with Pink News: www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/06/25/interview-andy-burnham-addresses-hurtful-attacks-on-his-equality-record/ and his policy on automatic pardons: www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jul/17/andy-burnham-men-convicted-gay-automatic-pardons-labour.

[AskBasil]

It's true that he's only got an hour,but let's face it, he had plenty of time before the hour, to gem up.

He didn't bother because we're just a bunch of mummies so he doesn't have to take what we say seriously.

It's incredible how widespread the assumption is, that mothers are idiots. Reddit thread assuming we're morons

[ProvisionallyAnxious]

Someone commented that his response r.e. the coup was odd. Anyone with access to the internet knows there are massive rumours about it - he could at least have said: "there are rumours, they are unsubstantiated", but denying he's heard of it at all seems like a very obvious mis-truth.

[ImperialBlether]

It's not the place for any in-depth answer, though. He's here for an hour, he was obviously either a slow typist or someone was checking what he wrote before it was posted. He had tons of questions, mostly on different topics. We're not going to get an essay on each, are we?

[LuluJakey1]

I have read back through every response he gave. Not one, not even one, answered in any depth the question asked.

Shallow, glib politico-speak. No substance.