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The other interesting snippet from the Sunday Times piece, is that Burnham currently has 50 MPs backing him and is approaching 100 MPs as backers, which would mean not all the declared candidates will make it to the ballot paper, as they need 35 MPs backing them to stand, which might be bad news for Tristram Hunt and Mary Creagh, but in terms of actual votes in the Labour electoral college, gives…
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Bit of a flip flop but it'll soon be forgotten. Most of the speculation is salacious nonsense which reflects poorly on those promoting it.
Effectively, what Labour are saying seems to be: 'We did badly in 2010, so we elected a new leader. Under him, one of our most senior figures quit politics, another lost his seat, and we went from a coalition to a Conservative majority government so the leader had to resign and quit politics himself. This disaster was down to the leadership. So, to put this right, we plan to elect a man who came fourth behind all these others. This is because all our other front benchers are either preternaturally useless or completely inexperienced (or in Tristram Hunt's case, both) and have made no positive impact in those five years.'
Labour's problems go way beyond the leadership, but the one sure way to go even further backwards in 2020 would be to elect Burnham as leader.
At the moment, I do not see any likely candidate who could seriously challenge any plausible successor of Cameron in the leadership stakes in 2020, and they have nobody who offers great hope of competence or indeed commanding public confidence as Shadow Chancellor. Stella Creasy would be the nearest, but I don't share the starry-eyed enthusiasm for her in some quarters - she strikes me as a well-meaning and fairly clever but lightweight politician who might turn out to be a bit of an Anthony Barber figure.
As a result, I am slowly coming to the conclusion that Labour could well be out of power for two decades rather than just one. And with vivid memories of the last years of Brown and Major to draw on, I cannot help but feel that's bad news for democracy, and possibly bad news for the United Kingdom.
Imagine the froth our friends on the left would have worked themselves into had a Tory leadership candidate been a member of Chuka's club?
Miliband was the Unions' chosen one.
Burnham may be appointed unopposed as the Unions' chosen one.
What could possibly go wrong?
But it demonstrates breathtaking arrogance that he think a man without any track record of a senior position could qualify to serve as Foreign Secretary: while PM and Chancellor are much more explicitly political positions, this post should be reserved for people with a modicum of experience.
It also seems unlikely - not impossible, but unlikely - that any complete outsider can get onto the ballot paper in the first place, because Labour are still in the 'denial' stage of defeat. They are thinking it was all about Ed Miliband personally, or the press, or the SNP, or the boundaries, and simply not facing the fact that they are profoundly and deeply unpopular throughout the UK. Even in their safest seats their majorities are no longer as safe as they were - for example in Aberavon for the first time in the age of universal suffrage they polled under 50% of the vote, almost certainly because they had a wealthy candidate who actually lives in Denmark foisted on them (I haven't forgotten he used to live in Aberavon). But because Labour are refusing to confront this, they may well make exactly the same mistakes again - and certainly none of the candidates, not even Kendall, have confronted reality in the way that is needed. I agree with Cruddas that until that happens, no suitable leader will emerge.
Cameron, remember, had the advantage of three crushing defeats to remind the Conservatives that people did not like them. Are Labour really going to be able to accept how badly hated they are on just two? Remember the trouble Neil Kinnock had in the 1980s and I would say probably not.
Labour, if it is to survive at all, needs to rebuild itself from the guts up - an end to centralised candidate selection, an end to the idea that everyone must conform to Central Office ideals and campaigns, and an end to the election of leaders who have more millions in the bank than brain cells. It's not an immediate cure - Janos Toth here in Cannock was local, and goodness knows he was a terrible candidate - but it's far more likely to be effective than just reshuffling the chairs in the shadow cabinet.
However, he will be a formidable opponent when he does run. Chuka may rue the day, as he finds his career path blocked by the former Para....
But this time around, the field looks woeful. Really, really dire.
He is the leader that they needed in 2010, but not now.
Is there a man with worse political antennae in Britain than Len McCluskey? Almost makes you think he must be in the pay of CCHQ.
"Excellent work, Friend Len. You have been awarded the Thatcher Cross with Spirit of Free Enterprise Bar...."
As for experience I'd say "life experience" (although not in the Daily Mail sense!) would be sufficient. May be it's my age, but I don't feel comfortable with a 36 year old who thinks he has what it takes to be Shadow Foreign Secretary...
He's got a baby with his second wife (Wiki), but his older children are 10 and 12. In 2020 they will be 15 and 17 - and would be 20 and 22 before he had a shot at being PM - so I reckon that he could take a run at it in 2020 without too much of an issue.
Their involvement in selection of leader of the Labour party is a disaster waiting to happen
a) recognises that it is responsible for much of the UK's financial problems because of reckless spending in the years 2000-8;
b) develops policies that don't just pander to society's ne'er do wells;
c) breaks all links with the union dinosaurs; and
d) forgets about Scotland.
I now agree with Salmond that Scottish independence is likely in his lifetime (I am approximately the same age as him and have a life expectancy of about 10 years), so there is no point from a Westminster perspective of Labour trying to win back support there. In some ways the SNP is to 2015 what SF was to 1918, with Sturgeon the equivalent of de Valera.
IMO, Labour needs to select a WASP as leader. They have already tried and failed with someone who was alien to the English; the "London" Sun's anti-semitic caricature about bacon on the day or so before the election will have resonated with middle English swing voters. However non-PC this view might seem, a Scouse cat would be a similar gift to the Tories. Kendall is the best of a poor bunch and doesn't have baggage.
There is a role in England (& Wales for the foreseeable future) for a mildly left-of-centre social democratic party, but if they are not careful and considered in the direction/leader that they choose, Labour are likely to be out of power for a generation. They do have some advantages in the disappearance of some competitors. The LiDems have been destroyed in this GE and are now merely bits of flotsam from a shipwreck. UKIP are self-destructing and their raison d'etre will have disappeared once Cameron wins the EU referendum in 2016/7.
Back to the topic. Isnt the system that Labour are using to elect their leader a new system introduced by Miliband? Couldn't they even get that simple process right?
" It also seems unlikely - not impossible, but unlikely - that any complete outsider can get onto the ballot paper in the first place, because Labour are still in the 'denial' stage of defeat. They are thinking it was all about Ed Miliband personally, or the press, or the SNP, or the boundaries, and simply not facing the fact that they are profoundly and deeply unpopular throughout the UK. Even in their safest seats their majorities are no longer as safe as they were - for example in Aberavon for the first time in the age of universal suffrage they polled under 50% of the vote, almost certainly because they had a wealthy candidate who actually lives in Denmark foisted on them (I haven't forgotten he used to live in Aberavon). But because Labour are refusing to confront this, they may well make exactly the same mistakes again - and certainly none of the candidates, not even Kendall, have confronted reality in the way that is needed. I agree with Cruddas that until that happens, no suitable leader will emerge."
I don't think Stephen Kinnock ever lived in Aberavon. He was born in Tredegar, but has no connection with Aberavon.
My Danish (very right-wing) friend is delighted with his wife, Helle Thorning-Schmidt. She has lowered tax rates for high earners, partly privatised the energy companies. In a very high-profile fight with the Danish teaching unions, she LOCKED OUT all the teachers.
Yes, a lock-out, the kind of thing associated with nineteenth century coal mine owners and iron masters.
Helle certainly would not be in the UK Labour Party if a British politician. From her actions, she is more right wing than David Cameron.
But, nothing was sadder than the Labour party stitch-up in Aberavon. A rich man, with no connection to the constituency and with little time to spend in it, now represents some of the most deprived wards in South Wales.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2314950/Majority-Labours-MPs-2015-election-links-unions.html
He doesn't even sound Scouse.
The proportion of Labour MPs who have links to unions through membership or donations has risen from 84 per cent before the election to 97 per cent now.
The number of MPs with links to Unite, the super-union, has risen from around half to 65 per cent, according to an analysis by the Conservatives.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11609545/Growing-share-of-Labour-MPs-have-union-links.html
"Burnham isn't Scouse."
Correct. Most Woolly Backs dislike being called Scouse. Those that don't tend to be derided as being 'Plastic Scousers.'
That's my opinion being an outsider and after living in a Liverpool post-code for over twenty years.
You may as well call him a "pie-eater" if you want a proper insult.
But he'd be a popular selection in the NW anyway.
Even the most tribal Labour voter dislikes sneaky manipulation and being treated as an idiot.
The Conservatives will remorselessly use this fact and it will dominate all areas of discussion.
That thought inspired me to look through some of the other seats in South Wales, which of course are often stitched up in that fashion (cf Peter Hain). Has anyone noticed that only five of them now have 50% of the vote going to Labour? Two of those are Rhondda Cynon Taff and Blaenau Gwent, which have been taken by other parties not that long ago (admittedly RCT at Assembly level rather than Westminster). That would appear to leave Ogmore, Merthyr and Swansea West as the last bastions of the 'they don't count the Labour votes, they weigh them' Valleys.
I'm wondering if this is another heartland where, if the conditions were right, Labour could end up under huge pressure. On these figures, next year's Assembly elections might offer a few decent possibilities for some surprise gains. A lot would of course depend on Plaid Cymru - who would have to be the realistic challengers in most of these seats - but Carwyn Jones' regime looks to me to be on the way out, and something would have to replace it if it imploded.
Then the next question - if Labour is under pressure in the North, Scotland, Wales and the Midlands - where exactly would the seats to return to power or even to survive as a political force come from?
'He wears his grievances like a true native though.'
He certainly whines like a scouser.
The alternative is that he either couldn't get the votes together or sees this as a good election to lost, so would prefer to position himself for the next one in 2018 or 2020.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)_leadership_election,_2010#Union_recommendation_controversy
It was this endorsement and cunning manipulation that pushed him over the numbers. It's fool hardy to claim otherwise.
Doesn't say much for his judgement though, does it? As the old Irish saying goes, never test the depth of a river with both feet. He now looks like a bit of an idiot - an inept campaign for a job he didn't want that only lasted a few days. Hardly bodes well for his chances next time around.
If that happens the Tories will be over the moon!
Of course, it is entirely possible Chuka and Dan Jarvis have looked at the personal abuse hurled at Ed Miliband and previously Gordon Brown, and decided it's not worth the candle.
In fact, the European elections were an excellent predictor of this year's result, unusually, if I had only had the sense to think about what they showed about Labour's deep unpopularity rather than being blindsided by UKIP's success and the opinion polls which superficially told a very different story.
Unions cannot install a leader or hijack a process. Even last time let's not forget that David Miliband would have been leader if he'd have won the support of (or been less rude to) 4 more Labour MPs. But the arrangements now are completely different. All leadership candidates will have access to union members equally, the union ballot papers will be sent out independently of the unions so won't even give the temptation of branded envelopes like some had last time. Only those union members who pay their union's political levy and sign up to a statement of support for Labour will be able to take part. The reason why unions are only doing this now is because they thought Ed would be PM and they were putting all resources into the election effort.
As an aside if Burnham had wanted to woo McCluskey then the last person he'd put in charge of his campaign is Michael Dugher! A while back launched a public criticism of him which led to an equally response from the union's political officer Jennie Formby. This hasn't been forgotten.
https://www.politicshome.com/party-politics/articles/house/inside-man
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/03/unite-official-ed-miliband-union-tactics
I don't buy that there are 100 MPs backing Burnham but if this is remotely correct then that is impressive. While MPs will only have the same vote as members, many activists will take note of who their own MP backs and it could help open up introductions to key local activists. It looks like Burnham will give Cooper a run for her money but it's not until we see the nominations next month that we'll really be able to make a hard-headed assessment.
'Any policy put forward by Labour under Burnham will be seen,probably quite rightly, as a direct instruction from McClusky...and it will be treated as such.'
Can't wait for the excuses in 2020 when Labour lose with McClusky's placeman as leader.
Len just asks Scouser Ed and the Peely-Wally Waif to decide heads or tails, as he takes out a coin.....
(Battlestar Galactica)
If Labour voters [in the leadership election sense of the word] do not believe they need substantial change, Burnham's still in good shape.
One point (sorry, yet another one about Hunt) - I know he's not a member of the UCU (if he had been, he would have been expelled for strike breaking, but I'm fairly sure he had resigned before that). It therefore seems unlikely he is a member of any union. Does that mean the link is broken anyway?
Also, which union would the Miliband brothers have belonged to, bearing in mind they were both in effect career parliamentary aides? Which union covers that?
As an outsider, the problem seems to be that the MPs themselves are of the mindset that Ed himself was the problem at the election, rather than what Ed and the party represented.
Burnham and Cooper represent continuity of that approach, whereas Kendall and Hunt represent a break with it - as happened in 1994 if they dare to remember Blair. Blair being of course the only leader who won elections for Labour in the past 40 years.
Len MCllusky has done more to damage Labour that just about anyone else.
http://labourlist.org/2013/10/why-im-considering-legal-action-against-jeremy-hunt/
'Unions cannot install a leader or hijack a process.'
Has anyone told McClusky ?
Well, I say 'chaps'. At the moment there are 4 candidates, and 3 are women. Thank goodness Toksvig set up her party for female equality
He was also the Secretary of State that didn't want the investigation into the deaths there publishing - as it was critical of the hospital and the NHS governance and he didn't want to upset the staff and their union.
" Tristram Hunt is another. I'm no socialist, but if I had lived in Stoke-on-Trent Central in 2010 I would have voted for Gary Elsby on principle (he also has other qualities that would have made him great fun in the House of Commons including an impish sense of humour, but that's another story)”
I guess there is a bubbling fountain of public schoolboys & schoolgirls, Oxbridge PPE-ers, who all want to become Labour politicians .... and nowhere for them to stand except places like Aberavon and Stoke-on-Trent Central.
And so ... we get this terrible narrowing of the life experience of Labour MPs. They all represent Oxbridge Central or A Hill in North London -- no matter whether they are standing in Doncaster or South Wales.
"I'm wondering if this is another heartland where, if the conditions were right, Labour could end up under huge pressure. On these figures, next year's Assembly elections might offer a few decent possibilities for some surprise gains. A lot would of course depend on Plaid Cymru - who would have to be the realistic challengers in most of these seats - but Carwyn Jones' regime looks to me to be on the way out, and something would have to replace it if it imploded."
I do think -- if UKIP find the right person for Wales -- they could pummel Labour in the Valleys. The Euro elections was a surprising performance, & UKIP are in second place in most of the Eastern Valley seats.
Probably, UKIP won’t do it. And certainly the right person is not Nathan the Chancer from Anglesey. But, the potential is certainly there. The Welsh Labour vote in the Valleys is flabby, and politically much more right-wing than their MPs.
Plaid Cymru should be able to do it, but they always disappoint. Everyone else had no trouble taking candy from the LibDems, but somehow Plaid went backwards in Ceredigion.
Labour are certainly looking tired in the Assembly, & they need to lose power to an effective opposition for the good of democracy. Has any other other party in Western Europe been continuously in power since 1999 ?
This leadership election is about whether they are serious.
In 1997 the Tories were exhausted and divided, as well as having their reputation for economic competence tarnished by Black Wednesday.
The latest one I've heard has alleged that some people got upset with some of the stamps in Alice Sullivan's passport.
My question is this: Is it true, as John Le Carré describes in his novel A Delicate Truth, that ministers nowadays don't only have their red ministerial boxes with the crown symbol on, but they also have black canisters from the US embassy?
Maybe this is only at some departments, such as defence, or what?
I thought some people here would know.
These arent the nailed on marginals that will fall in a gently swing, these are now much tougher. We have new marginals now. Just getting back to where they were before last week is going to be a task.
Both Smith and Blair represented the future of the party, whereas today Burnham and Cooper certainly don't. If Labour were thinking the same now as in '94, they would go with a centrist reformer, in the mold of Kendall, Hunt or Jarvis.
https://witchdoctor.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/mid-staffordshire-a-decade-of-warnings/
Mid Staffs got FT status on 1 Feb 2008. At that time Andy Burnham had just started as Minister for Culture Media and Sport, previously Chief Sec to the Treasury.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Oxford_people_with_PPE_degrees#UK_politicians
Burnham says that he regrets the inquiry into Stafford because it hurt the trust's reputation, whilst (rightly) supporting an inquiry into Hillsborough.
The people of Liverpool are apparently more deserving of the truth than those of Stafford
He's scum.
DJL: You should know better! Correlation != Causation.
:butterfly-effects-and-such:
Until you can get rid of Union influence, Labour are going to struggle.
By contrast Kendall I have been impressed with so far and could quite easily see her take the crucial votes from former Lib Dems and other floating voters. Best of all a woman leader might indicate Labour have moved away from the antediluvian attitudes of sections of that party.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-14854744
IS maniacs are coming to Europe via the Libyan refugee boats: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-32770390
MP's don't seem to die like they used to. I suspect a lot of it is to do with the drop in smoking.. How many Mp's now smoke..?
I gave up 2 yrs ago and am about £300 a month better off.. and I am much healthier than I was, that's for certain.