Excerpts from his article in The Times today. Do read the whole thing (here).
“I won’t be putting my name forward in the coming leadership contest. It’s not the right time for my family. My eldest kids had a very tough time when they lost their mum [in 2011] and I don’t want them to lose their dad. I need some space for them, my wife and our youngest child right now, and I wouldn’t have it as leader.
In Scotland, [Labour has] been all but wiped out. We were also rejected across large parts of England. Put London to one side and more people have walked on the moon than the number of Labour MPs elected across the south west, southeast and east of England. And while Ukip only retained one seat, they made a marked impression in our traditional heartlands. They cost us seats we needed to win, contributed to some excellent Labour MPs losing their seats, and they are not going away. We need to take them on.
We failed to tap into people’s aspirations with a sufficiently optimistic vision for how Labour would improve their lives. Important issues like education too often fell through the cracks in our messaging — even though it is the best engine of social mobility…
We must never go into an election again giving communities like Carlisle and Pudsey the impression that the Tories were more serious than us about spreading wealth across the country. We should equally ask how we allowed ourselves to be perceived as not on the side of wealth creators. Never again can we allow ourselves to be painted as having a problem with people eager to work hard, get on and succeed. They should know that Labour will always be their champion.
Labour’s membership is at its highest level for 15 years, but it is skewed towards particular parts of the country. We have hundreds of strong and active local Labour parties, but if we are honest we know others that have failed to reach out to their communities. We need to reassess everything we do to help bridge that gap. It won’t be easy, but a party founded to give a voice to working people should not set its ambitions any lower.”
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