Some excellent points made Paul and I applaud your reasoning. I still doubt whether the ConDem coalition will last the full five years though (as soon as the LibDems see their candidates failing in local elections it will only be a matter of time before they revert to type and wallow in the ease of opposition politics) . We need to be ready as a party to fight an election sooner rather than later and although I welcome an extended leadership campaign I strongly believe that we need a leader who is ready to be PM from the outset.

What a stupid, ignorant comment from an MP when issues of principle are at stake.

Let’s recap on the New Labour legacy:

The chances of a child from a poor family enjoying higher wages and better education than their parents is lower in Britain than in other western countries, the OECD says.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst-social-mobility

The UK is lagging behind other high income countries on cutting child mortality, international figures show. Along with the USA, New Zealand and South Korea, child deaths in the UK have not fallen as quickly as expected. The research confirms the UK has the highest child mortality rate – 5.3 per 1,000 live births – in Western Europe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8696690.stm

Blair’s effective repudiation of this traditional Labour principle set out his Chicago speech of 1999: “If we want a world ruled by law and by international co-operation then we have to support the UN as its central pillar.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june99/blair_doctrine4-23.html

Ignored warnings from independent think-tanks of the structural deficits in GB’s budgets going back to 2001 and about the house-price bubble going back to 2002.

Both John and Dianne are raking over the ashes of internal fires that are long dead.

Like Yarl’s Wood et al. And what Bob B says at 2. Labour’s legacy is rancid.

You just don’t get it do you? This year’s election was the first in which I didn’t know who to vote for. I could only vote against political parties, but there was no way I could cast a vote FOR Labour.

So, to recap – a form of collective amnesia is being proposed so that “a leader of high political intelligence and dexterity” might emerge in order to preside over party whose “opposition should be measured and not peevish” (whatever that means).

The Lib-Con coalition might be ‘flaccid’ but is still preferable to NuLab (or whatever the party is meant to be called nowadays) perhaps because of the golden opportunity to build a meaningful legacy that was so horribly squandered by Blair and his dreadful crew.

Why don’t you have the bottle to nail your colours to the flag, eh?
Name your preferred candidate and what it is about them that distinguishes them from the pack (in terms of specific policy and political vision) then maybe, just maybe, one or two might feel the never ending bullshit fest has been put to one side for 5 minutes?

They must present a plausible alternative to the flaccid ConDem years

Bullshit. Even if one assumes, as Paul does, that the “ConDem” years (hur hur.. sounds like Condom, aren’t I mature for an MP?) will be “flaccid” (another dick-joke), they haven’t happened yet. Labour tried to win on the basis of scaremongering about what the Tories were like 20 years ago, surely the answer to the failure of that policy is not to scaremonger about what the Tories/Lib Dems will be like in 5 years time? How does that make any sense?

What an atrocious article. I’ll just pick on one of the many inaccuracies:

“A sensible assessment would have been that Michael Meacher had a better chance of being nominated.”

Michael Meacher withdrew because he accepted that he had fewer nominations than John McDonnell and therefore less chance of being nominated.

“… must present a plausible alternative to the flaccid ConDem years…”

Wow, how phallocentric.

Clearly, what the Labour Party really needs is a huge cock of ‘fairness’ and ‘progress’ to wave in the face of voters at the next pre-election debate…

Of course the problem, as you identify, is that the “internal fires” no longer burn; ‘Labour’ drowned long ago in the piss and shite of Blair’s utter capitulation (read: centrism).

Hence “measured” opposition to what is likely to be the biggest fucking disaster this country has seen since the War – and a “politically intelligent” “alternative” to the already-illusory choice of Cameron or Clegg.

Cameron, Clegg, Miliband, Miliband or Miliband could be fucking clones for all the difference it would make.

The latest crisis has been a crisis of capitalism. It may be patched up this time, but next time?????????????

The Labour Party should remember what it was created for and stop sucking up to the very people who caused the crisis.

Return the water, electricity, gas and public transport industries to public ownership.

@Old Leftie

When was the Labour party about replacing capitalism? It has always been about moderating it, sometimes reforming it. But never overthrowing it.

Read some Crosland, old boy.

Disappointing and rather irrational.

blanco

Who said anything about ‘overthrowing’ it. It will self-destruct in its own time.

Read some Oliver James esp. ‘The Selfish Capitalist’.

Mr Flynn ..people like you are the reason people like me no longer vote Labour…

I think this is rendered even more disappointing and irrational by the presence of Paul’s name, nominating one Mr. D. Miliband… who clearly didn’t need his nomination.

Having said that, while it is indeed disappointing, irrational a little depressing, I think Paul should be applauded for writing his reasons in an article here, rather than completely ignoring requests to nominate a candidate from left, as many of his colleagues have done.

The tactical question that Paul considered in 2007 still stands: we party members want the same choice that MPs have, and I do think it a terrible shame that, this time, he has joined those seeking to close that choice out, by nominating a candidate who will ultimately have at least 3 times the number of nominations that he really needs, thus serving to close out some of the alternatives.

Will the new, highly dexterous and intelligent leader eventually end up hob-nobbing with venture capitalists?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/25/blair-lands-silicon-valley-job