Miliband criticised over Cabinet plans

Ed Miliband was facing a backlash from MPs over plans to abolish elections to his shadow cabinet. In a surprise assertion of authority, the Labour leader said he wants the power to hire and fire his front-bench team. Under decades-old rules, Labour's front bench in opposition is chosen through a ballot of its MPs every two years. Miliband said the system represented "a legacy of Labour's past in opposition". At a speech for the National Policy Forum in Wrexham, Miliband also launched a strong attack on Tony Blair's so- called "sofa style" of government. He said: "We went from six people making decisions in a smoke-filled committee room to six people making the decisions from a sofa in Whitehall. Sometimes less than six. "But the party was trying to tell us what the people wanted us to know. "They were telling us about immigration, about housing benefits and about the 10p tax. We didn't listen. "And we lost the last election." Miliband's plan to axe shadow cabinet elections will be discussed by Labour MPs ahead of a vote at the party conference in Liverpool in September. But left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell said he was disappointed by Miliband's proposal. "You don't demonstrate strong leadership by having a battle with your own party," he said. "I'm disappointed it was brought forward. "It is being spun as this sort of Clause IV moment where the leader of the party demonstrates he's a strong leader by taking on his own party. Most people think those days should be put behind us." He said Labour party members would be angry at the proposal. "They don't want to go back to the old days of Blair where everything was centralised and controlled, they want real democracy at every level," he added. In a scathing attack on Miliband, Labour MP Dai Havard described the idea as "flawed and wrong" and said the leader's recent e-mail to MPs was "something of an insult". From / Gulf News