Gisela Stuart MPWorking hard for Bartley Green, Edgbaston, Harborne and Quinton

Why I am backing David Miliband as Labour Leader // June 21st, 2010 // Constituency News

I look at the Labour Party leadership election through the eyes of an MP who won a seat against the odds. Labour had its worst result for decades and the Conservatives won. It’s no good pretending otherwise. I want Labour win the next election. But it must for a better reason than merely being back in power.

What am I looking for in the next leader? He needs to accept that government does not always knows best and that people when given the choice do the right thing. He needs to have the courage to listen even when the message isn’t what he wants to hear. That doesn’t mean “I’m the leader – I must follow them”, giving way to every pressure group, just because they make a lot noise. It requires a leader who has his own values and ideas, but is prepared to check that “he’s still on the right track”.

He will have to speak to the public as well as the party. It is easy to get a cheer by following every pet cause supported by party activists, or by denouncing some of the last Labour Government’s less popular decisions. No government is perfect, and ours wasn’t but there is something wrong with now rubbishing decision you were part of at the time. Speaking up when it no longer makes any difference doesn’t amount to leadership or courage.

I also ask myself who the opposition will fear most. David Cameron is assertive and combative but shallow when it comes to detail. Labour needs someone who remains calm, chooses their battles with care and demolishes the government with principles and reasoned argument rather than dog whistling sound bites

The new leader will need to choose his words and policies with care, not box himself into populist positions. The divisions of the Blair/Brown years are the past, we take the fight to David Cameron and the Coalition government but we do it because we having something better to offer to the British people.

I have had my disagreements with David Miliband, not least on the European Treaty where like others at the top he went along with a project that Britain should have said no to and refused the referendum we and every other Party had promised the British people.

On my score card no one candidates scores 10/10. But I will support David Miliband as the one candidate who has the greatest chance of leading the party, healing the Brown/Blair divisions, bringing about a fairer society and winning the next general election for Labour.

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