Go on then, who do you reckon will win? The Labour Leadership contest, that is...

I can't actually name a convincing candidate - not even sure what they'd have to do - get grassroots, paying-attn-to-people reform of the party properly underway while carrying the public/media side convincingly?

Ben Bradshaw

Bradshaw might not be a terrible choice but the talk of him "trebling his majority in 2015" overlooks the fact that it went from about 900 to 2700. Exeter isn't a safe seat by any means.

@djlogansama 4h4 hours ago
If Chuka Umunna gets in I'm on voting Green Party next time round. He doesn't like MCs. Left Garage for Deep House when crews came around.

he'll be dreading the mail getting hold of that

Dreading the K-Punk thinkpiece more like.

Love the implication that Ed Miliband and Natalie Bennett were caning More Fire Crew and Pay-As-You-Go.

tough on grime...

that tweet is a bit like an irl version of one of those unfunny weird twitter things where Joe Biden has strong opinions about the Wu Tang Clan or similar

Disappointed that all I'm hearing about is appealing to "aspirational voters"...I want at least one candidate to run on a platform of greater inter-generational balance and reform.

i don't know, i find it quite bracing to be told that i don't have any aspirations, i'd been wondering what was up with me

Sweepstakes on how long it takes before there are more candidates for the Labour leadership than there are LibDem MPs.

Be interesting to see what the membership swell will do to the election, with this one to be fought on true OMOV. It was 22,000 new members last time I looked, and all the ones on my timelines were doing it for "romantic left" reasons, not to encourage the party to re-embrace Blairism. Admittedly there's no romantic left candidate this time, but if one crops up – Tom Watson, for example – then they could find themselves surging up.

Also, Umunna, sadly, would be exactly the wrong candidate to woo back the Ukippers. Laura Kuenssberg sort of skirted round this on Newsnight on Tuesday, alluding to the possibility that he might be considered "too metropolitan" for those voters. Come on, it's not racist to say it – what you mean is he might be "too black" for those voters. Which is very sad.

think I've said this before but lol at Tom being on the romantic left in 2015

Chuka does actually DJ (or at least used to? He still blogs about tracks he loves in his newsletters/social media/local press, which is quite cute) so it's not entirely impossible he was talking about the nightclub, Trash?

Logan Sama said on Twitter that he wouldn't vote for Umunna because he ditched garage for deep house when MC crews started appearing on the scene

He wasn't talking about the nightclub, Trash. He was slagging off the punters of Chinawhite etc on asmallworld.

Laura Kuenssberg sort of skirted round this on Newsnight on Tuesday, alluding to the possibility that he might be considered "too metropolitan" for those voters. Come on, it's not racist to say it – what you mean is he might be "too black" for those voters. Which is very sad.

― Unsettled defender (ithappens), Thursday, 14 May 2015 13:22 (1 hour ago)

newsnight journalist describing ukip voters as racist would provide about a week's worth of press hysteria

voters don't generally seem to know a lot about the backgrounds of senior politicians but absent his ethnicity, ummuna is still a bit too london for a lot of provincial labour types.....private school, lawyer, luxe lifestyle etc.....he didn't go down the ppe/special adviser route probably because he didn't have good enough grades

lammy might appeal to some of those people because he is a relatively rare instance of a working class politician who made it into the gilded circle through hard work

in any case wrt ukip.....something like 10% of people who fled the liberal democrats voted for them; apart from the lapsed social-right conservatives, their electorate is such an incoherent category of resentful people, confused people, morons, basic nihilists etc that it is so difficult for any other party to appeal to them en masse

Chuka has withdrawn. I wonder what the story is there

My guess is that he thinks that Labour have zero chance of winning next time and would rather wait for more favourable conditions. The lure of potentially being the first black Prime Minister must be enormous but better to wait five years than rush into it and be chewed up and spat out.

What changed in four days though? That was just as true on Monday.

Wonder if the Sunday papers have something awkward.

maybe first real soundings told him he just wasn't getting 35 MPs.

Actually his stated reason might be true: he is seemingly upset (can't think why) that the tabs doorstepped his mum, his girlfriend's mum, and his girlfriend's 102-year-old nan.

Garagegate

If true that is both understandable and astonishingly naive.

Running for Mayor?

Chuka/Khan, etc.

“We need something so dynamic, so fresh, so strong that we need a born leader. None of the current contenders are natural born leaders, but it is clear that Keir is. I suspect he is from the left of the party, but it’s not about left and right; it’s about leadership.” Bernard said the online support for Starmer has been “overwhelming”.

He said: “It went crazy last night on Facebook after we launched – 180 or so joined in a matter of hours, which I didn’t expect.

Starmer / Khan on a human rights ticket would be fun, though i can't think of anything more doomed to ignominious failure.

Surely you can't stand for the leadership when you've been in Parliament for literally a week?

you can under the "ah fuck it, give him a go" clause

When you've been the DPP, you probably can. He's my MP, so it would be good if he concentrated on that role for now, right?

Surely you can't stand for the leadership when you've been in Parliament for literally a week?

― Matt DC, Friday, May 15, 2015 1:15 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Too Right! I nominate Bootsy Collins.

Chuka Umunna shows how the media is robbing us of ‘normal’ politicians
Owen Jones

seems like dogshit, if not the sunday newspaper then because of a tacit agreement to support whichever other candidate in return for a choice shadow cabinet post

Owen Jones, contempo normo

though fairly risible in any case that the early bookmakers' favourite was a 36 yr old with no meaningful experience of the so-called 'real world' and a single parliament of courting the press and talking the same shit, though with more grace than most of the other platititudinous dorks manage

keir starmer though a lawyer of some distinction and (doubtless reassuringly to the pr people) vaguely alpha in persona should not be taken for a civil libs type, any dpp is likely to be an authoritarian personality shithead and he is no different

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2012/mar/07/keir-starmer-guidelines-protester-prosecution

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/29/paul-chambers-twitter-joke-airport

Rachel Reeves has confirmed that she's backing Burnham, and that he has asked her to conduct an "investigation into Labour's economic record".

Burnham has also demanded Cameron secure a two year ban on EU migrants getting state support and promise an in/out referendum in 2016.

@KayBurley I've always liked Andy Burnham
9:59am - 17 May 15

Tories when it comes to slashing the benefits bill, Rachel Reeves, the new shadow work and pensions secretary, has insisted in her first interview since winning promotion in Ed Miliband's frontbench reshuffle.

The 34-year-old Reeves, who is seen by many as a possible future party leader, said that under Labour the long-term unemployed would not be able to "linger on benefits" for long periods but would have to take up a guaranteed job offer or lose their state support.

Adopting a firm party line on welfare, the former Bank of England economist stressed that a key part of her task would be to explode the "myth" that Labour is soft on benefit costs, and to prove instead that it will be both tough and fair.

Labour left looking strong.

Why vote for these cocks when you could vote Tory?

is there going to be a token left candidate this time? John McDonnell, Diane Abbott again?

Burnham said: “The country has voted now for a European referendum and under my leadership the Labour party will not be a grudging presence on that stage. We will now embrace it. It should be brought forward to 2016.

The country has also voted for £12bn of further welfare cuts so presumably by Burnham's logic his Labour Party isn't going to quibble with that either?

Thing is at this stage of the game there's basically zero risk in saying you favour a referendum given that Cameron is virtually certain to be bounced into holding one in this Parliament whether he likes it or not. Especially given Osborne's initial attempts to renegotiate Britain's membership last week were met with "will you just fuck off? We're trying to deal with Greece here".

Labour manifesto was that they would be at least as hard as the Tories on welfare cuts, I remember Rachel Reeves saying it on television.

The thing to remember is that the Labour Party of 96 onwards does not want to be an alternative to the Torder, they want to be competition for them. It's an important distinction.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Cooper celebrates in traditional style - is there anyone left on the left at all?

Labour must reset relationship with business, Yvette Cooper to say

has this always always been a thing? I notice it more and more, around the election especially - reporting some politicial is to say a thing rather than has said a thing.

It's when virtually the entire text is given to the press in advance, happens for most of Osborne's statements now.

and still the blair crew shit on about the lack of 'modernisers' on the ballot.

is there a particular benefit to fully briefing the press before a statement is actually made beyond appearing even more like a transparent operator?

It means the media don't always have to be there, getting in the way with their booms and cameras and teams of reporters and so on.

I'm a big fan of Lisa Nandy, she was briefly my MP. She always seems very honest and forthright in her media appearances. But does she have the profile? And she's not exactly working class despite being MP for Wigan, with her grandad being a Westminster School & Oxford educated Lord.

I think Nandy manages to come across as "ordinary" and "down-to-earth", regardless of who her grandad was.

if the PLP forces Corbyn to resign (and don't allow McDonnell or another Socialist Campaign Group type on the ballot for his replacement) then you have to assume that the Labour members who voted Corbyn in are going to go apeshit; they would need to put someone who can make a credibly portray themselves as a leftwinger and break from the New Labour era, can't really think of anyone with a higher profile who'd cut it (certainly not Burnham)

I mean, I realise that "ordinary" and "down-to-earth" are amorphous and fairly silly concepts, but they matter and to extent that you can define them I think Nandy does ok on that score

Labour dream ticket 2016:

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/resources/images/2624572.jpg?display=1&htype=100000&type=responsive-gallery

Hilary Benn's been sacked

lol

omfg

a good time to bury good news :p

Separately, an anonymous vote on a motion of no confidence in Corbyn is likely to be held by the parliamentary Labour party on Tuesday. Backbench MPs have been using WhatsApp to garner support for the motion, and it is believed that up to 80% of the parliamentary party are now set to vote in favour of Corbyn standing down.

screenshots of that chat would be fucking amazing