Labour leadership candidates

Steve Richards is only partly right when he says that the gullible Labour leadership candidates have fallen into a "trap" with their apologies "for their government being responsible for the global economic crash", and that Tory leaders would never resort to "saying sorry" for previous administrations` failings (Labour`s next leader should look to Cameron, not Blair,01/06/15) For a start, Tories never face such hostility from a media, 85% overtly pro-Conservative, but what Richards also fails to mention is that these would--be leaders of the Labour party are also "apologising" for ever having appeared to support Miliband`s election proposals. With the mansion tax being accepted by all as the "politics of envy", and the Blairite propaganda about failure to meet the demands of both the so-called "aspirational middle" and of business being seen as the real reasons for the defeat, we can expect yet more examples of candidates in Miliband-denial mode.

     At least Cooper has said that she "would keep Labour`s 50p top rate" which is something, though rather than follow Richards`s suggestion of copying Cameron, perhaps the candidates should, in this respect, be emulating Margaret Thatcher? (Stop obsessing over aspiration, Sadiq Khan tells Labour hopefuls,01/06/15). Under her leadership, the top rate of income tax, between 1979 and 1988, was kept at 60%!  We clearly need not only a candidate, who, as Richards says, refuses to apologise for the past, but who also has the bottle to say that there was little wrong with Miliband`s policies, and that business, with its unfair pay policies, its zero-hours contracts and propensity to pay as little tax as possible, will get support from Labour when it deserves it.