The Labour Party in 2011 was in an exceptionally bad place. We'd been hammered in an election. We didn't see the scale of it coming.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The Labour Party has become consumed by collective bile towards... the Liberal Democrats. That portrays a rather nasty arrogance.
We just have to be crystal clear that if we were to abandon all the reforms made over some very painful years in the Labour party, we would be consigned back to opposition.
I feel sorry for generations of Labour voters and supporters who must look and wonder what on earth has gone wrong and what Labour is for.
The instinct of the Labour Party is if there's a problem, change the leader, then sit back, fold your arms and wait to be disappointed because they're sure it's not going to deliver.
What people should understand is that I adore the Labour party.
When I joined Labour in 1982, I didn't feel I belonged to a party born to power. My repeated experience was of bitter and repeated defeats.
The labour Party has lost the last four elections. If they lose another, they get to keep the liberal party.
We've got to stand up for what we believe in as a labour movement. And that means the party's membership needs to be even bigger so it becomes a genuinely mass organisation.
So our problem is not Labour, it is us, is making us attractive enough to gain disillusioned Labour support and to compete effectively with the Lib Dems for those loose votes.
There has always been something less than wholesome about New Labour. But Blair for a long time had an easy ride. There was the whopping majority. There was the relief that the Tories were finally gone. There was the grand hyperbole.