Welcome to my Blog

I am a semi-retired former Scottish trade union policy wonk, now working on a range of projects. This includes the Director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation. All views are my own, not any of the organisations I work with. You can also follow me on Twitter. Or on Threads @davewatson1683. I hope you find this blog interesting and I would welcome your comments.

Thursday 19 August 2010

Ed Milliband

I was speaking at a meeting in Glasgow this evening in support of Ed Milliband for Labour Leader. UNISON has nominated him and is supporting his campaign.

He articulated a very clear vision for Labour under his leadership. One of the criticisms of the campaign has been the claim that the candidates (other than Diane Abbot) are all very similar. Tonight I got a very clear idea how he is differentiating himself from the other candidates. In particular he recognised that New Labour has had its day and that the party needs to rebuild, based on values that our natural supporters would recognise.

He answered a range of questions from the floor, including several very specialist ones. He handled that well and had a good grasp of the issues you would expect to come from a trade union audience.

In all a polished performance and I left feeling that we had made the right choice. Whilst his brother may be the favourite, I suspect he is likely to pick up a lot of second preference votes that could see him come from behind to win.

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