I'm sad to leave the frontbench, but I'm going to enjoy the backbench even more

31 Oct 2013
I'm sad to leave the frontbench. But I'm going to enjoy the backbench even more.

I was never on the frontbench in over 20 years in parliament. So it follows I have never been sacked from it before. But this morning I was. Ed Miliband was very nice about it, but there was no doubt what he was saying.

My first thought was that I was sorry to be no longer working with Andy Burnham and the health team. I got to know him during the leadership campaign and you could not have someone who was easier to work with. He took the fight to the Tories on health in a way that had never happened before. He also seemed to have learned that the New Labour agenda of NHS privatisation had been tested to destruction and it was time to draw a line in the sand. I am also sad to be leaving some of the good friends that I made in the public health world. My role enabled me to engage with some fascinating subjects, like the sexualisation of women and girls and I plan to continue working on those issues.

I also want to go back to campaigning for Hackney, in a way that I did not have the freedom to when I was a frontbench spokeswoman. In particular I am concerned about the effects of austerity on a community like Hackney. The Tory cuts are a double whammy for people in the inner city. They lose services, but they also lose jobs. The public sector is by far the biggest employer in Hackney. And it is time to offer a more far-reaching critique of austerity. For instance, if we have to make cuts, why is Trident untouchable? Scrapping the Trident replacement would save £34bn. You could protect a lot of public sector jobs with that money.

I have long despaired of the downward spiral of Labour's rhetoric on immigration. For instance we should have come out against the "immigrants go home" van far more quickly and more firmly than we did. Unfortunately the people around Miliband are terrified by the polling on immigration and have convinced him that we have to move right on the issue. My settled view is that there are no votes for the Labour party in pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment.

Having told he wanted me to go, Miliband said a little anxiously "How do you feel?" I said: "You must be right. You are the leader and it's your reshuffle." I have enjoyed being on the frontbench. But I plan to enjoy being a free agent on the backbenches even more.

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