Labour’s ladies and the mother of all rows
You can’t back Yvette just because she’s a mum, says aide to childless rival Liz
LABOUR’S leadership campaign has descended into acrimony after one of Yvette Cooper’s aides appeared to suggest Liz Kendall should not win because she does not have children. Helen Goodman, a shadow minister, wrote an article saying she was backing Miss Cooper – a mother of three with former shadow chancellor Ed Balls – because: ‘As a working mum, she understands the pressures on modern family life.’
A link to the online piece was circulated on Twitter by the Cooper campaign team.
Yesterday, Miss Kendall’s campaign manager said the endorsement implied the shadow home secretary believes a party needs a leader who is a parent.
Toby Perkins told the BBC’s Daily Politics: ‘I think the idea that you say because one of the candidates is a mother they are the one that you should back suggests a paucity of intellectual argument which the Labour Party should have moved beyond.’
John Woodcock, another Kendall supporter, said: ‘Looking forward to the day someone tells a man they are voting for him because he has a kid and the other guy does not. Will be equally sad then too.’
Miss Cooper’s campaign has already emerged as the most negative, with members of the team accused of having attacked Miss Kendall for being part of the ‘New Labour Taliban’.
Miss Kendall is seen as the most Blairite of the four candidates to take over from failed leader Ed Miliband.
Yesterday a group of Labour members set up a Facebook campaign calling for her to become Conservative leader. The piece by Mrs Goodman, a shadow work and pensions spokesman, said: ‘Much more important to me than being an MP and shadow minister is that I am a mum.
‘I have two children and although they are both grown up (supposedly), once a mum, always a mum. I remember the difficulty of having to work and arrange childcare.
‘Getting them up and ready for school, nagging them about their homework, which strangely seems to get harder as they get older, then battling to get them to bed at a sensible time – a task. That’s why I’m backing Yvette Cooper to be the next Leader of the Labour Party. As a working mum, she understands the pressures on modern family life.’
One Labour source said it was unwise for Miss Cooper’s team to highlight the domestic arrangements of the leadership candidates. The source added: ‘Everyone knows the Tories are working up a campaign against Yvette based on her marriage.
‘They will be saying: “This is Mrs Ed Balls – you thought you’d got rid of him, but you haven’t”.’
‘She understands
the pressures’