Labour pledges unanimous opposition to Royal Mail sale

Every single Labour MP will vote against Liberal Conservative attempts to sell off Royal Mail, party leadership hopefuls vowed yesterday (Wednesday).

At a CWU-organised hustings event in central London, each of the five candidates standing for the election promised to order a "three-line whip" on the subject if it comes to the House of Commons.

Some 200 members of the union packed into a Westminster meeting room to hear David Miliband, Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbot spell out their hopes and aspirations for the party and the country.

After introductory statements by the five, the audience were invited to quiz the quintet, putting our would-be leaders on the spot over the economy, revitalising Labour and preserving our links, universal broadband, trade union law and Royal Mail.

And the Royal Mail question produced complete unanimity, each candidate, in turn, unhesitatingly answering: "Yes" to CWU Southeast Wales Amal Branch secretary Amarjite Singh's challenge on whether voting against this measure would be mandatory - a "three-line whip" - for all Labour MPs. "Yes," said David Miliband, "It's a manifesto commitment and transformation is happening."

"Yes," replied Diane Abbott. "Privatisation only makes a profit by bearing down on wages and conditions."

"Yes certainly," was Ed Balls's response, "and we also need to support the modernisation work the union's leading on."

"Yes, you've shown with the modernisation agreement you can work with Royal Mail to bring in modernisation," Ed Miliband argued and Andy Burnham told Amarjite that "you're on a full house here" before adding his own "Yes."

After praising the modernisation agreement that the union and Royal Mail have entered into, the former health secretary recalled, from his own experiences at the NHS, that comprehensive new agreements of this type need time to settle in and that privatisation could only be a disruptive factor.

"You've got to give people some stability," Andy Burnham insisted.

Responding to Birmingham Branch secretary Brendan O'Brien's question on the need for universal broadband, David Miliband described public access to high-speed connection as "infrastructure that's as important as our rail network.

"It's universality that's going to drive the economy and jobs growth," he added, insisting that there was a key role here for public funding and a private-sector levy.

And the other panellists agreed, Ed Balls pointing out that the nation could not simply rely on the private sector to deliver this. "We need the public sector and regulation," he argued, while Mr Burnham said that today's call for universal high-speed broadband access was "absolutely in the same tradition as the postal and public telephone universal service" that governments of previous generations established.

There was just enough time left for a final question from CWU North East Region secretary Paul Clays on whether former government minister turned celebrity diarist Peter Mandelson should join the shadow cabinet. This sparked another outbreak of unanimity among the five, none of whom showed any enthusiasm for the so-called "Prince of Darkness." Andy Burnham perhaps summed up the mood of the candidates when he joked: "I'm not sure I'd even let him read to my children!"

And Ed Balls added: "You can either be a serious politician or you can write your memoirs and he's chosen to publish his memoirs."

Closing the event, CWU general secretary Billy Hayes thanked all of the candidates for attending and told them: "Given the comments today I think you should all be running the country! Today has been a great opportunity for CWU to hear your policies on the areas that matter to our members and we wish you all well in your campaigns."

Billy pointed out that, in the vote for the Labour Party deputy leadership in 2007, the CWU had returned the highest turnout among the trade union movement and he urged eligible CWU members to make sure they vote this time and raise the turnout even higher.

Source: cwu.org