Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith may belong to the same party but the two cut different figures during their first Labour leadership debate – which took place in the All Nations Centre in Cardiff on Thursday evening.
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It was very pleasing to see our members engage in such a friendly and well mannered debate.
LABOUR paid zero corporation tax a year ago – despite being in surplus by £4.3million – the party’s accounts revealed yesterday.
The plans were among 10 pledges announced by the Labour leadership contender today, but the RLA believes that introducing controlled rents would inevitably reduce the supply of rental homes, worsening the United Kingdom housing crisis.
They appeared to be referring to a Commons Justice Committee report into the operation of family courts, which said the Australian system – which favours shared parenting when parents split – had not contributed to children’s well-being. “This is a preparation for a general election when we can win that general election and produce decency and real opportunity for everybody in our society”, he said.
Ms Evangelou, from Enfield, north London, said she has been a Labour voter all her life but had only joined the party because she supports Mr Corbyn’s “Labour values”. I don’t think we can win Jeremy at the moment. “It would be a good thing if Labour MPs got behind their leader”.
Mr Corbyn blamed the challenge to his leadership for Labour’s poor performance in opinion polls which show the party languishing behind the Tories, but insisted the slump was temporary.
He said: “History tells us that when the Labour Party is divided, when the Labour Party is split, we lose elections, not once, twice, three times. but four times in a row”.
Ten people were chosen at random to speak in support of Mr Corbyn and Mr Smith, five on behalf of each candidate. “Today we have seen how powerful an idea that is, with our policies on ending the gender pay gap, investing in affordable childcare and tackling violence against women and girls being adopted by Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn”.
What I don’t understand is how you can complain about disunity in the party when you and others are the ones who resigned from the shadow cabinet at the very point when we could have taken it to them. While 38 per cent of those who voted Labour in 2015 believe Corbyn would make the best Prime Minister, this is only marginally ahead of the 33 per cent of this group who preferred Theresa May, and the 30 per cent who were not sure. “When we work together we do defeat the Tories”, he said. The statement drew loud cheers from parts of the audience.
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Owen Smith, a former member of Corbyn’s top team, accused the veteran socialist of “sloganising” rather than holding the Conservatives to account, and of failing to campaign hard enough to prevent a vote to leave the European Union.
