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| Yvette Cooper: ‘The whole party is devastated. But we can’t afford to curl up in a corner’ | Yvette Cooper: ‘The whole party is devastated. But we can’t afford to curl up in a corner’ |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| Life was never going to be easy for the Cooper-Balls household after the 2015 general election. Had Labour formed the government, they would have instantly become the most powerful married couple in Britain. Ed would have been chancellor of the exchequer and Yvette, in all likelihood, home secretary. That prospect, for the parents of three young children, was as daunting as it was exciting. | Life was never going to be easy for the Cooper-Balls household after the 2015 general election. Had Labour formed the government, they would have instantly become the most powerful married couple in Britain. Ed would have been chancellor of the exchequer and Yvette, in all likelihood, home secretary. That prospect, for the parents of three young children, was as daunting as it was exciting. |
| A defeat, they presumed, would have meant both returning to the Commons to face bitter recriminations and five more years in opposition. As it turned out, the electorate propelled Cooper and Balls in altogether different directions. Balls lost his seat in one of the biggest shocks of the election night, while his wife set about pitching herself into a campaign to succeed Ed Miliband following Labour’s catastrophic loss at the polls. If successful, it would make her the first elected female leader of the Labour party in its history. Her political career is still rich with possibilities; her husband’s may well be over. | A defeat, they presumed, would have meant both returning to the Commons to face bitter recriminations and five more years in opposition. As it turned out, the electorate propelled Cooper and Balls in altogether different directions. Balls lost his seat in one of the biggest shocks of the election night, while his wife set about pitching herself into a campaign to succeed Ed Miliband following Labour’s catastrophic loss at the polls. If successful, it would make her the first elected female leader of the Labour party in its history. Her political career is still rich with possibilities; her husband’s may well be over. |
| “Of course it is hard for Ed and all of the candidates who lost,” Cooper says, carefully. “You know Ed. He is strong. He will have lots of things for the future. The kids have exams, and he is watching football. He is very happy that Norwich City got through to the playoff finals.” | “Of course it is hard for Ed and all of the candidates who lost,” Cooper says, carefully. “You know Ed. He is strong. He will have lots of things for the future. The kids have exams, and he is watching football. He is very happy that Norwich City got through to the playoff finals.” |
| But he must have been very cut up? “Look, it’s politics. He played to win,” is all she will say, adding merely that he has been answering lots of consoling emails and letters, including some from senior Tories. Balls even got a “very nice” text from George Osborne. | But he must have been very cut up? “Look, it’s politics. He played to win,” is all she will say, adding merely that he has been answering lots of consoling emails and letters, including some from senior Tories. Balls even got a “very nice” text from George Osborne. |
| Cooper talks at breakneck speed, keen to move away from Balls and their family, and to look forward. Sensitive to the charge that she is not exactly a “new face” of Labour, she believes the party’s task now is both to analyse in depth what went wrong this time, and then to spell out new ideas, fast. “The whole party is obviously devastated by the result and it would be easy to feel exhausted and demoralised. But we can’t afford to just curl up in a corner,” she says. | Cooper talks at breakneck speed, keen to move away from Balls and their family, and to look forward. Sensitive to the charge that she is not exactly a “new face” of Labour, she believes the party’s task now is both to analyse in depth what went wrong this time, and then to spell out new ideas, fast. “The whole party is obviously devastated by the result and it would be easy to feel exhausted and demoralised. But we can’t afford to just curl up in a corner,” she says. |
| Related: Why Labour must win back working class voters from Ukip | |
| The idea that the party should take a couple of years to decide on a new leader while it mulls and agonises is one she rejects outright. “The key is to have the energy and the sense of vision and direction, while having this wide-ranging debate. It cannot be a lethargic drift for months or years before we get our mojo back, before we get our energy back.” | The idea that the party should take a couple of years to decide on a new leader while it mulls and agonises is one she rejects outright. “The key is to have the energy and the sense of vision and direction, while having this wide-ranging debate. It cannot be a lethargic drift for months or years before we get our mojo back, before we get our energy back.” |
| A former secretary of state for work and pensions, and still only 46, she has a clear diagnosis of the reasons for defeat under Miliband and uses it to inform her own prospectus for winning in 2020. Labour’s offer to the country, she says repeatedly, was “too narrow”. | A former secretary of state for work and pensions, and still only 46, she has a clear diagnosis of the reasons for defeat under Miliband and uses it to inform her own prospectus for winning in 2020. Labour’s offer to the country, she says repeatedly, was “too narrow”. |
| “Too many people felt what we were offering was short-term help with the things that were troubling them most right now: energy bills, the bedroom tax, zero-hours contracts. But not enough people were convinced about what we were going to do for them for the future. They thought, ‘You have dealt with this exploitative zero-hours contract issue, but where is my next job going to come from? Where are the jobs of the future? Where is the opportunity of the future? Where is my next promotion going to come from?’” | “Too many people felt what we were offering was short-term help with the things that were troubling them most right now: energy bills, the bedroom tax, zero-hours contracts. But not enough people were convinced about what we were going to do for them for the future. They thought, ‘You have dealt with this exploitative zero-hours contract issue, but where is my next job going to come from? Where are the jobs of the future? Where is the opportunity of the future? Where is my next promotion going to come from?’” |
| She believes the party was wrong to think Ukip would take more votes from the Tories than Labour – a point made by former shadow health secretary John Healey, writing for the Observer this week. | She believes the party was wrong to think Ukip would take more votes from the Tories than Labour – a point made by former shadow health secretary John Healey, writing for the Observer this week. |
| She is at her most passionate on the need to create an economy more geared to the creation of hi-tech digital “jobs for the future”. Women in particular need to be drawn into these kind of posts, she says, as do people in communities where skilled jobs no longer exist and there is a desperate need for careers. | She is at her most passionate on the need to create an economy more geared to the creation of hi-tech digital “jobs for the future”. Women in particular need to be drawn into these kind of posts, she says, as do people in communities where skilled jobs no longer exist and there is a desperate need for careers. |
| Related: Labour must reset relationship with business, says Yvette Cooper | |
| “It is crazy that over 95% of coding is being done by men, so in some of the most powerful jobs of the future there are hardly any women. Why are we not doing more to have coding colleges and technical, vocational education alongside university education? There is a huge thing about women being part of that technical revolution.” | “It is crazy that over 95% of coding is being done by men, so in some of the most powerful jobs of the future there are hardly any women. Why are we not doing more to have coding colleges and technical, vocational education alongside university education? There is a huge thing about women being part of that technical revolution.” |
| In her own Yorkshire constituency, where closure of the Ferrybridge power station was announced last week, she wants the children of the skilled workers who had jobs there for generations to be able to train for hi-tech leadership positions. “The sons and daughters of miners should all be learning coding. We have such huge advantages because of the world wide web being invented as a result of British ingenuity,” she says. “We also have the English language but what are we doing as a country to make sure we are at the heart of the next technology revolution?” It is a pro-business agenda that she believes Labour lacked under Miliband. | In her own Yorkshire constituency, where closure of the Ferrybridge power station was announced last week, she wants the children of the skilled workers who had jobs there for generations to be able to train for hi-tech leadership positions. “The sons and daughters of miners should all be learning coding. We have such huge advantages because of the world wide web being invented as a result of British ingenuity,” she says. “We also have the English language but what are we doing as a country to make sure we are at the heart of the next technology revolution?” It is a pro-business agenda that she believes Labour lacked under Miliband. |
| Tied to this, Cooper wants Labour to develop bolder plans for free universal childcare, for all children aged three and four initially, and then to go further for those with toddlers, when ways can be found to fund it. She wants to advance the idea of “toddler tax credits” too. | Tied to this, Cooper wants Labour to develop bolder plans for free universal childcare, for all children aged three and four initially, and then to go further for those with toddlers, when ways can be found to fund it. She wants to advance the idea of “toddler tax credits” too. |
| “We should make it easier for you to juggle work and family life without feeling continually stretched, continually stressed and continually guilty,” she says. Cooper is careful not to disown too crudely the agenda she was promoting only a few weeks ago. Labour, she argues, should have built up a surplus in its third term rather than running a small deficit, but she says it is “ridiculous” to claim that spending on health and education caused the financial crisis. It is a very qualified admission: more a refusal to be browbeaten into denouncing the legacy of 13 years’ work on public services. The mansion tax (backed by Balls), she says, was right for the period before the election, as it helped explain how the party would down bring the deficit, but should now be “reviewed”. | |
| And she now backs the in/out referendum on European Union membership, while saying that the UK should stay in the EU and argue for reform before and after the vote. | And she now backs the in/out referendum on European Union membership, while saying that the UK should stay in the EU and argue for reform before and after the vote. |
| Cooper is deadly serious about getting the top job and says she has the support of 35 MPs that is necessary to get on the ballot paper. “We have had 100 years of the Labour party championing women’s equality, but we have never broken through that glass ceiling,” she says. “The final glass ceiling to break through is to have an elected woman leader. Then we can do politics in a different way.” | Cooper is deadly serious about getting the top job and says she has the support of 35 MPs that is necessary to get on the ballot paper. “We have had 100 years of the Labour party championing women’s equality, but we have never broken through that glass ceiling,” she says. “The final glass ceiling to break through is to have an elected woman leader. Then we can do politics in a different way.” |