The real hustings’ winner is…Labour’s record  

I felt all the candidates did well in today’s Labour leadership hustings on Sky News. But the real winner, according to audience applause, was the reference to Labour's achievements in Government. It's true that all candidates acknowledged our mistakes and made calls for change, consistent with traditional values in a modern setting. But whoever is elected leader to hold the Lib Con Coalition government to account and lead our party back to Government, will need to highlight Labour's achievements alongside their new progressive policy agenda and campaign hard to promote both. On this occasion, it seems the clearest defence of the Labour Government’s real achievements over 13 years came from David Miliband. He said: “We have to defend it with an absolute passion because if we trash our record no-one’s going to believe us in the future.” David...