Training | 2010.02.20
James Purnell to quit as MP
Former work and pensions secretary to train to be a community organiser
Labour suffered a blow today when James Purnell, one of its youngest and brightest MPs, announced that he was standing down at the coming election. The former work and pensions secretary says he has no new career plans, but is going to train to become a community organiser, echoing Tony Benn when he said he quit Westminster to pursue a political career.
Purnell, MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, resigned from the cabinet last summer in protest at Gordon Brown\'s leadership, but no other substantial figure, including his friend David Miliband, the foreign secretary, followed at the time.
Since his resignation Purnell, 40 next month, has been working across Labour to forge a stronger ideological base for the party, sometimes synthesising left and right in a way that might yet form a new party platform if it was in opposition or needed to form an alliance with the Liberal Democrats.
"I have spent all my working life in or about Westminster. While this has been a huge privilege, I\'ve realised I don\'t want to have spent all my life in frontline politics," Purnell said in a statement.
"I\'m looking forward to completing my project at Demos [on the future of leftwing politics]. After that my hope is to contribute ideas to public service and to the Labour party."
Purnell has not taken back his statement on his resignation from the cabinet that he believes Labour is less likely to win under Brown\'s leadership, instead insisting that it is possible Labour can win. Purnell said his decision was no reflection of Labour\'s chances at the next general election.
Educated at Oxford, he first arrived at Westminster as a student researcher to Tony Blair, then a young shadow minister. He worked at the Institute of Public Policy Research and the BBC before entering Downing Street as Blair\'s culture adviser. He became an MP in 2001, and was quickly made a whip and then a junior culture minister before becoming culture secretary in 2007. Brown appointed him work and pensions secretary in January 2008.
Lord Mandelson the business secretary, said he was "very sad – he has real ability, he is a very good member of the party. In a sense, given the age he is, he is looking to the future".
Barry Sheerman, the senior Labour MP who called for a ballot on Brown\'s leadership after Purnell resigned, said: "He was one of the rising stars of the party regardless of what you thought of his resignation. I\'m deeply worried about the turnover of MPs at the election. People you would count as future management in any other organisation are going. People who should have a lifetime in parliament are giving up and saying: \'Who would want to do this job?\' You work your hardest to do a proper job and you are labelled as wicked and untrustworthy.
"People can see a life outside parliament where you don\'t get constant negative criticism."
Labour currently holds Stalybridge and Hyde with a near-9,000 vote majority, and would likely retain it at the election. Purnell believed a resignation now was preferable to a departure mid-way through the next parliament, which would have triggered a byelection. Purnell is likely to keep his home in his constituency.
Purnell is considering doing more teaching at a comprehensive in Kilburn, north-west London, after doing one shift this month. He and a member of his constituency party will spend next week at a five-day community organising course run by the UK\'s largest community organisation, London Citizens.
In his eight months outside the cabinet Purnell has worked at the thinktank Demos building up ideas at the three-year Open Left project and has become increasingly attracted to the work of London Citizens, made up of 150 member institutions and representing 300,000 people.
He told the Guardian last month that he endorsed all three of their policy aims – a living wage of £7.60 an hour, a cap on extortionate interest rates and giving 1% of the bank bailout, when repaid, to an endowment fund for deprived communities.
In his recent speech at the LSE he spoke about the work of 1930s radical Saul Alinsky, whose community organising programme in Chicago schooled US president Barack Obama.
Matthew Bolton, lead London Citizens community organiser in east London and head of the living wage campaign said: "James is very special to us. I\'ve known him six months and he\'s really connected with the community organising methods and our living wage campaign. I\'ve never known a politician understand it so well and we look forward to working with him."
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/19/james-purnell-steps-down
