Labour leadership: Challengers set to do battle again at Yorkshire hustings

The five challengers – including Morley and Outwood MP Ed Balls, the Shadow Education Secretary, and Doncaster North's Ed Miliband, Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary – took part in the latest of around 50 hustings yesterday in an event organised by Unison at the Marriott Hotel in Leeds.

They clashed over public sector pensions, the Government's two-year pay freeze, privatisation and the use of Private Finance Initiative, and devolution of power from Whitehall. They were also questioned about how they would protect public workers and ordinary families while tackling the huge budget deficit.

Today they will do battle again alongside fellow shadow cabinet ministers Andy Burnham and David Miliband and left-winger Diane Abbott in an event organised by Unite at the city's Queen's Hotel.

The epic leadership contest will continue until the winner is announced at the party's conference in Manchester in late September.

Shadow Foreign Secretary David Miliband gained the backing of most MPs and has been nominated by 16 constituency parties, two more than his younger brother Ed.

Yesterday, Ed backed the extension of the right to request flexible working to all workers, arguing that it was important to protect people's lives outside work as well as in the workplace.

Meanwhile, Mr Balls used a magazine article to attack the "Budget from Hell" and criticise former Labour Minister John Hutton's decision to chair a commission reviewing public sector pensions.

He said: "The last few weeks have proved that we are the only movement in this country that will stand up for working people."