Labour's future and unions' role

1. Unite leader says the union may reconsider relationship with Labour
2. EU referendum should be brought forward, say two Labour leader candidates
3. Labour facing 'greatest crisis', and needs fundamental rethink, says MP Jon Cruddas
4. Ministers could sack headteachers, and force schools missing targets to become academies, under government plans

Sunday round-up

That's all from us on this fine Sunday. Before we go, here's a recap of some of the bigger stories:

Unite's affiliation to Labour could be reconsidered unless the party shows it represents working people, the union's leader, Len McCluskey says

Labour leader hopefuls Andy Burnham and Mary Creagh agree there should be an early referendum on the UK's membership of the EU

UKIP's deputy chairman Suzanne Evans  tells her boss - Nigel Farage - to take a two-week holiday,  as she insists the party is not a one man band  

Coasting schools will face quicker government intervention, Education Secretary Nicky Morgan says  

And when the election exit polls came out, Ed Miliband cried out - "It must be wrong!" (see 15:12 entry)

Thanks for sticking with us. Good evening.

Analysis: Labour and the unions

PA

The BBC's political correspondent Carole Walker looks at how trade unions might shape Labour's future- from Unite boss Len McCluskey's public fallout with Scottish Labour's Jim Murphy to leader hopeful Andy Burnham trying to shrug off the "union candidate" tag.

Trouble in Europe

Findlay will not make Scottish leadership bid

PA

Labour MSP Neil Findlay rules himself out of the running for Scottish Labour leader.

I hope to play my full part in that process but I also want to make it crystal clear that I will not be a candidate in the election for the position of Scottish Labour leader.

Mr Findlay - who stood against the outgoing Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy - says the party needs to rebuild its organisation, the morale of party members and have the policies to restore the faith of the voters in the run-up to the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections.  

How the opinion polls got it wrong

BBC

The BBC's political research editor David Cowling has some sympathy with the pollsters who got the election result so wrong.

Here, he writes how the mix of anger and contempt showered on the pollsters - who had spent six weeks suggesting a different result - were feelings he understood but did not share.

Turn it off and on

Miliband 'cried aloud' at exit poll

Messy negotiation

On his own government's negotiations with its EU and IMF creditors, Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis says: "We're in the midst of a very tough negotiation which is fragmented. It's a very messy negotiation, and it's important to get it right at all these levels, in all these dimensions, because let's face it, the last five years have proven that agreements that were struck just in order to strike an agreement have not been very good at settling the Greek crisis and making it go away."

Political philosophy

The World at One

BBC Radio 4

EPA

Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who has himself been involved in lengthy negotiations with the EU over Greek debt repayments, has this advice for David Cameron on negotiating with the EU: "I think that Mr Cameron has to work out precisely what his political philosophy is with respect to Europe. To treat it as simply a single market that Britain wants access to, ignoring the fact that it is a lot more than that, is not a good start I believe."

EU free movement

The World at One

BBC Radio 4

Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg says that renegotiation will hinge on free movement of people from the EU to the UK. "The touchstone for renegotiation will be the free movement of people. It's one of the four freedoms of the European Union, and if the EU is willing to give ground on that, it will show that it's willing to consider a fundamental reform, rather than just tinkering at the edges."

Independent English Labour?

The World at One

BBC Radio 4

As part of the process of reforming itself, the Labour party should split, so there is an English Labour party, Jon Cruddas says. "We should have an independent Labour party in England that seeks to contest the very notion of modern English nationhood."

Poll position

The World at One

BBC Radio 4

On why Labour lost the election, Labour MP Jon Cruddas says: "In reality our strategy was based around almost gaming the electorate, around a series of poll leads."

Duracell bunnies

The World at One

BBC Radio 4

Jon Cruddas says that "phrases thrown around" get in the way of understanding what went wrong for Labour. "I've heard over the last 10 days an awful lot of Duracell bunnies running around shouting 'aspiration, aspiration' even louder and I don't have a clue what they're talking about." On the other hand, people are saying if the party had gone anti-austerity it would have avoided defeat, he says. "Neither of them, it seems to me, amount to much in terms of the scale of the defeat," he adds.

Labour in danger

The World at One

BBC Radio 4

When asked whether the Labour party would always be around, MP Jon Cruddas says: "No political party's got a right to exist." He adds that Scotland, "aspiration" in the south and UKIP in the North are all challenges. "This is fractured in so many different that there's no easy on/off switch in terms of political renewal."

Unite and Labour on the rocks?

John Pienaar

Pienaar’s Politics

The relationship between Unite and Labour is at risk, Len McCluskey told Pienaar's Politics earlier: "It is the challenge of the Labour party to demonstrate that they are the voice of ordinary working people, that they are the voice of organised labour. If they do that in a way that enthuses us, then I don't believe that the mountain that is ahead of us is un-climbable. But it's up to them. If they don't, if they inject more disillusionment in the party, then the pressure will grow from our members to rethink. It's certainly already growing in Scotland."

'Dark places'

The World at One

BBC Radio 4

On the Labour leadership, Jon Cruddas tells The World This Weekend: "The person who should be the leader is the person who runs towards the defeat, who's prepared to go to the dark places and fundamentally rethink what the Labour party is for, who it represents."

'Good quality bogeyman'

John Pienaar

Pienaar’s Politics

David Cameron and Nicola Sturgeon must have thanked each other when they met this week, Lib Dem leadership contender Tim Farron tells Radio 5 live. "In these times where politics seems to be about winning an election on the basis of having a good quality bogeyman - and David Cameron and Nicola Sturgeon surely must have said 'Thank you very much' to each other at their meeting this week, because they both won because of the other - we need to realise instead that politics should surely be about unifying values, a tolerant and diverse country." 

Lib Dems' nemesis? Tuition fees, says Farron

John Pienaar

Pienaar’s Politics

Lib Dem leadership contender Tim Farron was asked earlier on Radio 5 Live: What did the Lib Dems get wrong in the coalition with the Conservatives? He said: "Tuition fees is a major part of it, but I also think that a lot of it was the inevitability of a junior partner in a coalition coming off worst at the end, and that tends to happen."

He says: "The party has been absolutely devastated, I thought we were going to do poorly, I think many of us did, I didn't think we'd do this badly."

Lib Dems relevant?

BBC

One of the few remaining Lib Dem MPs, Norman Lamb, is asked: "What's the point of the Lib Dems?" He says: "The Lib Dems are needed more than ever now, and I suspect that the liberal values that I hold very dear will be under threat under this government."

Mr Lamb, who is a contender for the Lib Dem leadership, says: "I am fundamentally a liberal... I was a campaigning minister." 

Helmer: Nothing to see here

The Daily Politics

BBC

UKIP's Roger Helmer says that the media has "built up some minor issues" in UKIP, and that the party hasn't seen really serious internal dispute since the election. "What row?" he asks. He is reminded that campaign director Patrick O'Flynn said Nigel Farage had become "snarling, thin skinned, and aggressive". Mr Helmer says: "I agree that Patrick O'Flynn made some very unhelpful comments... but we have an issue.. with a couple of staffers who've gone, and one MEP who made some unhelpful comments."

UKIP's inner turmoil

The Daily Politics

BBC

Sole UKIP MP Douglas Carswell insists he suggested UKIP leader Nigel Farage should take a break as leader, not that he should take a break from being leader. "It's important that, as leader, he takes a break, and I think it's important that we work out how these complex questions are answered by a team. No one person has all the answers."

Creagh fishing?

The Daily Politics

BBC

Labour leadership candidate Mary Creagh is challenged as to why she is standing, as she is one of the less well-known candidates. "I'm standing because I think the party needs a fresh voice that can reach out to middle England, the suburbs that we lost, but also to our industrial heartlands, which have seen the changes of globalisation, the consequences of immigration, and feel that the Labour party has turned their back on them."

Scottish 'alienation'

John Pienaar

Pienaar’s Politics

Jim Murphy "has been at the epicentre of the ideology that has alienated Scottish working class for years", Unite general secretary Len McCluskey says. "Not just in the election, not just in the referendum, but for years, since 2008, the SNP have been gaining ground, and Scottish Labour have displayed an arrogance that unfortunately led us to where we were at the general election."

Murphy's law

John Pienaar

Pienaar’s Politics

On Jim Murphy's resignation, Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, says Mr Murphy blaming Mr McCluskey individually was "looking for a bogeyman as an excuse". He says: "I wasn't the one that lost Scotland to the SNP... It wasn't just Unite who called for him to step down. Unison, GMV, Aslef, CWU, a growing number of MSPs..." He adds that he doesn't hold a personal grudge against Mr Murphy.

Every school an academy?

The Andrew Marr Show

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan is asked: Will every single state school become an academy? "I would like to see many academies, we have made a pledge in the manifesto to have many more free schools as well... the best people to run schools are the heads, the unions, and the governors." 

Heads will roll

The Andrew Marr Show

Nick Morgan is challenged that an education bill the Conservatives want to introduce will give the government powers to swiftly move in on "coasting" schools. She says: "Why is it that in some schools students are reaching their full potential, and in other schools they're not? Now, it may be down to leadership... where heads show they absolutely have the capacity to improve... we want to give them time to do that, but where it is clear that a school does not have the capacity or the plan... to help their students fulfil their potential... then yes, we will intervene, we will put in support, and yes, we will look at the academy model too."

Starmer rules himself of Labour leader contest

'Power to heads'

BBC

Academies are better than local authority schools, says Education Secretary Nicky Morgan. "We can see in the results that actually students do do better in academies, both at key stage 2, that's the end of primary school, and also in GCSEs." They also give "power to heads and teachers" in running their schools, she says.

Danger of 'sleepwalking' to EU exit

On calling for the EU referendum to be brought forward, Andy Burnham says: "It's clear the British interest is in staying in the European Union, but I am warning that we will only be able to win that argument if we have a credible package of reforms on immigration.. If David Cameron does not deliver it, then we will be sleepwalking to exit of the European Union."

Deficit was 'too high'

Andy Burnham says Labour "allowed the deficit to get too high in the middle part of the last decade." He says: "When the [financial] crash happened, we weren't in a strong enough position." Nevertheless, Mr Burnham, who was chief secretary to the Treasury in 2007, said he conducted a spending review "where we had decided to grow public spending below overall growth in the economy, because we were beginning to see that this was a looming issue and we had to deal with the deficit, and bring it down."

Blairites and unions 'wrong'

On going back to New Labour policies, and moving further to the left: "both approaches are wrong", Andy Burnham says. "We've got to bring people back together." 

'Change candidate'

The Andrew Marr Show

BBC

Andy Burnham says he is the "change candidate" in the Labour leadership contest, rather than the continutity candidate "We've got to reach out to those voters who had doubts about us on immigration and on economic competence."

No haters

BBC

On the problems inside UKIP, Suzanne Evans says she doesn't think "anyone hates anyone" in the party. "We've had some problem with some advisers around Nigel who very much kept him in their pocket... but they've gone now." She adds that on the perception that the party is aggressive, the party has to address why there are "shy kippers" - "If our party brand is working at the moment, why don't people want to sing and dance about it?"

Farage 'on a knife edge' of parody

Andrew Marr

Presenter, The Andrew Marr Show

UKIP leader Nigel Farage is "on a knife-edge between being himself and being a parody of himself," Zoe Williams says. "His vow is to be the boss for the next 20 years."

Fraser Nelson says: "The point he is making is that UKIP may have 4 million votes, but it's still Nigel's party, it's still a one-man organisation."

Marr paper review

BBC

The Labour party are "falling back into this really old channel - is it the unions, or is it the Blairites?" Zoe Williams, a columnist for The Guardian says, about Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy's resignation. Murphy was characterised as Blairite - but what's important is that  - "nobody voted for him, so it doesn't matter what the party thinks of him".

Fraser Nelson, the Editor of The Spectator, says: "If unions don't like Jim Murphy, they do like Andy Burnham, who is now the front runner in the [Labour leadership] race."

On Marr this morning...

Labour's Andy Burnham:

BBC

UKIP's Suzanne Evans:

BBC

and Education Secretary Nicky Morgan:

BBC

Schools plan 'a serious error'

BBC

It's unclear what a "coasting" school actually is at the moment, Kevin Courtney, deputy secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) tells BBC News. "For some people it seems to be suggesting that every school has to be above average, and that is statistically impossible." The NUT wants schools to improve, he says, but wants to look at evidence on how to improve schools. Good evidence was provided by a schools improvement scheme called the London Challenge, he says, but this scheme was dropped by the coalition government. He adds that there is "no convincing evidence" that academies improve standards. "This is serious error that the government is making. They are following something which has no evidence base."

Political character

BBC Radio 4

Getty Images

Labour must rediscover its fundamental purpose, says MP John Cruddas, in an interview with Radio 4 to be broadcast later on The World This Weekend. He says: "The question of political character is now more important than political policies, because people don't know who we are. There isn't that basic sentiment now, in and around Labour, so our candidates sometimes find it difficult to articulate a sense of purpose, vision, and we have to go back to fundamentally rethinking who and what we are."

Parents 'should be pleased' with schools plans

BBC

A "coasting" school is one where "the results might be ok... but it's a school where the pupils aren't making as much progress, and I don't think that that's a satisfactory position," says Jonathan Simons from right-wing think tank Policy Exchange, which supports the government proposals on schools. "Parents should be pleased by this, because this isn't necessarily just about poor schools, or schools in challenging areas. There can be some very leafy schools... where the schools aren't making satisfactory progress."

'Real struggle'

BBC Breakfast

BBC

There is a "real struggle" going on at the heart of the Labour about how it should rebuild itself after its "shattering defeat" at the polls last week, political correspondent Carole Walker tells BBC Breakfast. "Interesting to hear John Cruddas, who played such a key role in drawing up the Labour manifesto, saying its not enough just to come up with a series of 'micro-policies'," Carole says. Mr Cruddas said it's not just about reaching out to aspirational voters, but Labour also needs to win back core voters too.

'Coasting schools'

BBC Breakfast

BBC

Schools could be forced out of local government control if they consistently underperform. If schools have average results with no prospects of improvement, they could be forced to become academies. BBC presenter Elizabeth Glinka says under the plans regional schools commissioners will have the power to sack headteachers in failing schools, or schools that are "coasting". There are also plans for more academies and free schools, which are set up from scratch. The NUT says there is "no convincing evidence that academies improve education."

Good morning

Labour lost at the general election because it focused on a series of micro policies instead of thinking about who it represented and its values, MP John Cruddas will say in an interview with The World This Weekend later.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has said  new powers to sack head teachers  in coasting schools will show "it is not OK to be just above the level of failing". Ministers could also force schools missing targets to become academies under government plans.  

And Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham has called on David Cameron to bring forward the EU in/out referendum to 2016, and said there should be a renegotiation over immigration in an article in The Observer .