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Rachel, selected to stand in Leeds West for Labour on an All Women Shortlist, has outlined her support for the policy, as long as it is supported by the local party.

She has written an article in the Guardian today, which you can read here.

The article responds to David Cameron's suggestion that the Tories may follow Labour's lead with the policy in the future.

Rachel met with three local entrepreneurs last week – David from Elemental Fitness, Jonathan from The Fruit-Box and Gemma from Skillz Education, as well as West Leeds Enterprise Centre manager, Diana Holmes.

All three entrepreneurs are using the West Leeds Enterprise Centre to set up their own business and all believe that despite the recession they have the ideas, creativity and drive to build the businesses of the future. The Enterprise Centre, funded through government money, is providing practical and professional support for David, Jonathan and Gemma so that they can concentrate on getting their businesses up and running.

All three entrepreneurs will be featured in a short film on Monday 2nd November at 7:45pm on Channel Four’s ‘The Political Slot’, looking at the experiences of small businesses during the recession and how they feel about the future.

Gordon Brown came to Leeds on Thursday, and took the opportunity to speak to a large gathering of local supporters and community leaders.

Rachel organised a lunchtime event where the Prime Minister praised Yorkshire's Labour Party members for the campaign that was run against the BNP in Barnsley last week and took the opportunity to thank community leaders for their work in our area.

Gordon Brown emphasised the importance of fighting for Labour's core values of fairness and prosperity for all.

After speaking to the crowd, the Prime Minister chatted with parliamentary candidates and guests. Rachel said "It was a fantastic opportunity to introduce Gordon to people in Leeds West who are making a difference locally - including school governors, charity workers, community wardens and business people and so encouraging to hear the Prime Minister recognise the efforts that local people and party members are making."

Osborne ducked the key questions, aiming for one-liners and easy headlines instead

Expectations ahead of George Osborne’s speech today were high. Osborne has attacked every single measure that Alistair Darling has taken to support British families and businesses through the recession, and every effort taken by the Labour government to invest in the jobs and skills of the future, to ensure that, unlike in the 1980s and 90s, a generation of young people are not confined to the scrap heap.

So what, we are surely entitled to ask, would the Tories do instead? Eric Pickles said yesterday afternoon that ’by this time tomorrow you should know just about everything‘. But we don’t. And, quite frankly for an opposition party that sees itself as the government in waiting, the lack of detail that still persists, seven months from what is likely to be polling day, is not acceptable. What would the shadow chancellor spend this year, what would he spend next year? Those are the questions voters are legitimately asking. Today Osborne ducked the key questions, aiming for the one-liners and easy headlines instead.

Let’s look at what we have been told. Well, there are a lot of headline-grabbing (but not revenue-raising) gimmicks – cutting the number of MPs, cutting ministers’ salaries (but given 19 members of the shadow cabinet are millionaires, they’ll not likely notice), and cutting pensions for new MPs.

Those who work in public service will also have their real pay cut (saving £3.2bn a year) – but unlike Darling, Osborne is talking not just about mandarins in Whitehall, but also the district nurse, the classroom teacher and the police sergeant. But, as far as I am aware it is not nurses, doctors or police who caused the economic crisis, but rather some greedy bankers – but all they got was a warning. Because of course regulating their city backers does not fit in with Tory ideology of a smaller state. It’s all well and good for Osborne to say ‘he believes in the free market, not a free ride’, but when it comes to substance he is found wanting.

The Tories try to imply that they want to support the vulnerable, with their promise that public servants earning less than £18,000 a year will be protected. But that will be met with mirth in Leeds, where bin men on an average salary of £18,000 are facing a pay cut from the Tory/Lib Dem council of £5,000 a year. It’s difficult to trust the Tories when what they say and what they do are so very different.

So much for the gimmicks. What about the meat? Yesterday’s spin suggested something pretty radical on the retirement age with talk of £13bn savings a year. But, the Tories are rapidly rolling back. Cameron started the u-turn on the Today programme – promising a ‘review’ (not a commitment) and suggesting that women would not be included – for now. The result, savings of £3bn (£10bn short of yesterday’s numbers), and a lot of uncertainty for people approaching retirement.

Apart from those who rely on the state pension (and of course, that is mainly lower income families) who else will be paying for the age of austerity that Cameron and Osborne talk about with such relish? Well, certainly not millionaires – Osborne repeated his commitment to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £2m for couples – a tax cut of £200,000 for the richest 3,000 estates. And, probably not even those in the top 1% of earnings. For while the Tories will stick with the new top rate of tax for those earning over £150,000 – although he didn’t commit to keep it for the life of the next parliament – they did not sign up to the other three tax raising measures announced by Labour in the Budget.

* They will NOT withdraw the personal allowance on income tax for those earning over £100,000 (worth £1.5bn a year);
* They will NOT address the anomaly which sees a quarter of all pensions tax relief going to the top 1.5% of savers (raising £3.1bn a year); and
* They have NOT signed up to the 0.5% increase in all rates of National Insurance Contributions (raising £3.35bn a year).

The banking crisis and recession will be used by the Tories to do what they always wanted to do. Cutting back the size of the state and then cutting taxes for the few. Osborne repeatedly insisted that ‘we are all in this together’, but that’s not how it seems to me and it’s not how it will be seen by the mainstream majority who the Tories still need to win over.

It's not every day you get to meet with a super-star, but today Rachel had the pleasure of meeting Ronnie the Rhino, mascot for the great Leeds Rhinos rugby team.

It's a big week ahead for the Rhinos - next Saturday Leeds take on St Helen's in the Super League grand final at Old Trafford, the Theatre of Dreams. If Leeds triumph next week they'll be the first team ever to win three grand finals in a row. Come on the Rhinos. Come on the Rhinos.

See http://www.therhinos.co.uk/ for more info.

Slightly croaky and in need of a good night’s sleep at the end of a very busy week.

The highlights for me were Alistair Darling’s critique of the Tories economic ‘strategy’, Mandelson’s fantastic performance and extension of the car scrappage scheme and Gordon Brown’s speech – full of vision and packed full of policies.

The decision taken by the Sun was obviously disappointing, but as John Prescott put it, it will be “the son, daughter, uncle, mother and friend wot win it in 2010. Endorsements from ordinary people not media barons”. Well put John.

On a personal perspective, it was a privilege for me to chair a meeting on climate change last night with David Miliband and Douglas Alexander. David and Douglas, along with Ed Miliband and the Prime Minister are providing intellectual political leadership in the run up to the Copenhagen summit in December. Copenhagen must go down in history as the defining moment when the world faced up to the scale of the climate change threat. As Douglas put it – there’s no plan B.

Back to Leeds now to take our message out to voters. We go in to the general election as the underdogs, but like all delegates returning to their constituencies today – I’m up for the fight.