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

ts:
http://cdn.discogs.com/UPLZWG3_zvM1X631s2bpKZkwOYE=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb()/discogs-images/R-6465176-1419892885-9734.jpeg.jpg
vs

http://cdn.discogs.com/xRc0oU6Fi9mY9jME8xPcuSEL4vg=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb()/discogs-images/R-383596-1291887630.jpeg.jpg

Liz Kendall finds supporter:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/17/david-miliband-electing-jeremy-corbyn-risks-one-party-tory-state

Miliband in favour of two-party Tory state etc.

Weird timing to be backing the 150/1 outsider unless he thinks the leadership contest isn't going to be over when the votes are counted. I'd have thought that whatever marginal influence he has is just going to draw votes away from Burnham and Cooper.

think we have to assume at this stage that these idiots really believe in the invisible difference of their preferred advocate of neoliberalism

'draw votes away' doesn't matter that much in the leadership election though - Kendall/Cooper/Burnham/Corbyn and Cooper/Kendall/Burnham/Corbyn are both effective for the ABC crowd.

All this talk about offering policies that are 'financially viable' makes me reach for my

https://img1.etsystatic.com/017/0/6337680/il_570xN.498770417_ki4l.jpg

shirt.

it's like there's a contest to see who can react to corbyn's popularity in the stupidest, most self-defeating way

it's like a perfect distillation of the european-wide disconnect between elites and rank-and-file

"no, THIS is what you should think"

'draw votes away' doesn't matter that much in the leadership election though - Kendall/Cooper/Burnham/Corbyn and Cooper/Kendall/Burnham/Corbyn are both effective for the ABC crowd.

This is true to some extent but if the best case ABC scenario is Corbyn winning around 45% of the vote and losing on second preferences, for the next leader to have any credibility I think they need to be pulling in something around the upper twenties. I'd have thought picking one of the candidates to rally behind would make more sense than a doomed attempt to make Kendall happen even if it didn't materially affect the outcome when the preferences are tallied.

for the next leader to have any credibility

They won't.

Yes, I almost typed "(lol)" after writing that but I guess they have to try. The party is probably doomed either way.

I just had a phone call from a man working for Yvette Cooper's campaign asking me if I'd decided who to vote for yet, I told him that I'd already voted and put Corbyn as my first preference. then he asked me who I'd put as my second preference and I told him that I voted for Cooper as my second preference, and he thanked me for the second preference, but I kind of got the impression he thought I was just pretending to have put Cooper as my second preference because I was embarrassed? I was telling the truth, though. anyway, the whole thing was awkward.

I was kind of worried he was going to shout at me when I told him that I'd voted for Corbyn

four teenagers on channel 4 news right now, each repping for one of the leadership contenders, Kendall supporter giving some amazing side-eye to the Corbyn supporter

was funny to each of them trotting out their candidate's sound bites

cathy newman is terrible

Channel 4 News is terrible.

http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/gordon-brown-and-power.html

decent piece that identifies some of the glaring deficiencies in new Labour thinking

was funny to each of them trotting out their candidate's sound bites

I know, right? I think the Cooper supporter actually did the 'no good Keynesian would ever call for it' bit from her speech the other day word-for-word

xp also a reminder that, for all that Blair is the greater evil, it was Brown that came up with "hard working families" as the only unit of political merit.

'British jobs for British workers', another of his greatest hits.

He was also responsible for the "Hits Greatest Stiffs" album title. True, dat..

lol

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11808589/Yvette-Cooper-Andy-Burnham-is-too-similar-to-Jeremy-Corbyn-and-must-step-aside.html

URL says it all.

that sort of comic instinct deserves a place in the spotlight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZsYvkTw4Rg

work to be proud of, newsnight

Terry Dicks may have been an awful racist bigot, but at least he wouldn't have put up with crap like this:

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/general-news/tory-mp-shelbrooke-vows-to-wear-onesie-for-commons-vote-1-6373367

jeez, didn't realise that Dicks is still alive

Purges be happenin'..

Show trials next.

Peter Mandelson as judge and executioner.

Aug 21 1940 - Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky fatally wounded by Stalinist agent in exile.

Never forget..

Owen Hatherley was rejected as an entryist despite, in his words, never having "been a member of anything other than the NUJ and Crohn's & Colitis Society".

They also managed to block someone who stood for election for them in May.

maybe i'm secluded in my world of entryist people but it does seem that naebdy's getting in

That stable door is well bolted, for sure.

Any journalists looking into rejections, does anyone know?

Some guy on twitter is building a DB to get some numbers etc.

Owen Jones & George Monbiot seem to be involved with that too, at least in terms of publicising it.

Yeah looks like it will be reported on..

Yeah, just spotted mention of the guy with the database. Going to pass this info on.

http://labouroflatte.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/purge-away.html

http://i.imgur.com/JRDwEap.jpg?1

You too could be called a star by the compliance unit.

pay £3 for full stasi privileges

they're handling this more clumsily than metallica faced illegal downloading

Blair-Iraq levels of mishandling imo

wau

the lack of foresight to allow just anyone to put in a few quid online and then be able to vote in the leadership election, compounded by the heavy-handed and incompetent policing of said campaign really beggars belief.

incredible stuff

xp am i right in thinking that format was one of ed miliband's gestures to the left, making labour a party of the people again etc etc? and what a disaster for the plp that it actually worked

I think it was a gesture to the right - there was a panic a few years ago about the influence of unions over the leadership (lol) so they ditched the electoral college and went to one member one vote with union members having to opt in rather than being counted automatically.

Yeah, it was an attempt to placate the right by limiting the power of the unions in the choosing of a leader... blown up in their faces hilariously.

As someone suggested upthread it is deffo a timely period to re-watch Bleasdale's GBH and it has aged very well.