About Diane
* Diane has been the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington for 23 years. She has been a Member of Parliament twice as long as any other candidate in this leadership election. And she is the only leadership candidate who actually increased the Labour Party’s share of the vote in their own constituency at the last General Election.
* Diane has served the party at every level. In the eighties she was a local councillor in London Borough of Westminster. In the nineties she was an elected member of the National Executive Committee of the party. She was a cabinet member under the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone. As an MP she has served on, both the Treasury and Foreign Affairs select committees, of the House of Commons
* Diane identifies with the rank and file of the party. She came up through local government, not the special advisor route. She was never “fast-tracked”. She was not “parachuted” into a constituency. No other leadership candidate has her knowledge of the grassroots of the party
The Current Crisis
* The Coalition government want the poor to pay the price of bailing out the bankers. 80% of the money will come from slashing public expenditure. Only 20% will come from tax rises. Public expenditure cuts are a “double whammy” for ordinary people. They lose their services, but many also lose their jobs.
* The Coalition government plans £11billion in welfare cuts, with even bigger cuts in the pipeline. Families, the disabled and the elderly will be hit hard. And they want to make us all work until we are seventy. This is not just something forced on them by the economic crisis. It is an excuse to slash the state.
* The cuts threaten hundreds and thousands of public sector jobs. That is bad enough. But they also put in peril over a million private sector jobs that depend on government contracts.
Party Democracy
* Diane believes that the Labour Party foot-soldiers deserve more respect. At the last election, without the loyalty and hard work of ordinary party supporters the result would have been much worse than it was.
* If the party had listened to ordinary members, it would have not have made mistakes like: the 87p rise for pensioners; abolishing the 10p tax rate and going to war with Iraq.
* Shaping policy should not just be a matter for the Westminster elite. We need to reform party structures to revive the party and give more power to members. Party Conference, the Policy Forums and the workings of the National Executive must be reformed to give members a real say over policy.
Why Vote for Diane
* Diane is the “turn the page” candidate. She is best placed to rebuild and revive the party. This is partly because she has much more experience of the party at the grassroots than any other candidate. But also, she can enthuse woman, young people and other groups who may not have been active in the party before. She can broaden the party’s base and lead it to victory against this Coalition government. She is the people’s candidate, not the Westminster insider’s candidate.
* Diane will fight the cuts. She is committed to standing up for the public sector and offering an economic alternative.
* Diane will listen to the Party and its voters. She made all the right decisions on tuition fees, the removal of the 10p tax and the Iraq War. Diane now wants to bring troops home from Afghanistan, scrap Trident and close the gap between rich and poor.
She would be proud to lead the party and bring it back to power.