Do you have a source for the opinion polls showing Abbott ahead of the other contenders? Agree with the main thrust of this article, Burnham is a joke.

But Diane Abbott voted against the Iraq War in March 2003, which rather makes it look as though she had no confidence in the competence or integrity of our great war leader, Tony Blair, who went on to lose 4 million votes by the 2005 election along with half the membership of the Labour Party. Surely, it would be unwise to reward such remarkable prescience.

I can’t wait.

What polling there has been so far (YouGov poll a couple of weeks ago) had Abbott second, even though taken only a day after she announced her attempt. Details here (page 3 of pdf):

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-210510.pdf

However she seemed to do worst among Labour voters, of whom the electorate are a subset after all. This may indicate an ability to attract new voters to Labour or that opposition voters may just think her the easiest to beat.

At this stage of the campaign, polling probably just tells you about name recognition. There should be more soon now the final list of candidates is fixed.

It is clear that we need someone articulate to challenge cameron at PMQs. That certainly rules out Burnham who showed that he was unable to challenge Lansley after the ridiculous “death tax that was not” charge that the Tories used to good effect.

Balls is abrasive in a blunt and unintelligent way, but the Millibands are the total opposite: too intellectual.

I am sure that Abbott would not allow Cameron to slime his way through PMQs.

Don’s final point is crucial. As well as “sharpening campaign skills” the new leader will have had to fend off a much wider range of opposing arguments, and had to build a much deeper network of supporters. Brown completely lacked this and it made him vulnerable to every snipe and snark for 3 years.

As I’ve said elsewhere already, and was thinking or writing up a post for here at some point.

As a former Labour voter who became utterly disillusioned with the Labour Govt, and ended up joining the Liberal Democrats as a result, the only candidate that has any appeal to me, the only one who I could see bringing me, and vaste swathes of peopl elike me, on board, is Diane Abbott.

As a Liberal Democrat, cautiously supporting the current coalition as the only possible option, but hoping for a better option after the next General Election, the only candidate for the leadership that I can currently see my party being able to actually negotiate and work with, is Diane Abbott.

As a voter in a three way marginal, looking at the next election likely to be fought under AV, I’d really like to put my vote down for a party not led by an illiberal authoritarian git. The newly elected Tory appears to be on the “left” of them, and thus in the centre ground, he’s also socially liberal. I can’t imagine giving my first or 2nd preference to a party led by any of the “main” challengers. I can imagine giving it to a party led by Diane Abbott.

There’s a huge amount of crap about how “she can’t win” or she’s “a joke candidate” or that she’d be “an electoral disaster”. I can’t see this, at all. I can see a competent, left leaning liberal socialist, who on pretty much all the issues the Labour govt did the wrong thing, and drove me away, she voted against.

Abbott’s challenge can only be a good thing for the Labour Party. … whoever emerges as Labour’s next leader will have sharpened and developed their campaigning skills, and be all the better prepared to help Labour win the next election.

Agree completely. I don’t think she’ll win, unfortunately, but without her on the ballot, the leadership contest really would be a joke of a contest, between managerialist authoritarians completely out of touch with reality. Simply by being there, she’ll force them to confront the actual problems Labour faces.

Isn’t it a bit odd that when everybody on this blog (and throughout the Labour movement) seems agreed that the party has to re-connect with the white working class, Andy Burnham, the only WWC candidate, is dismissed as a joke and no-hoper?

This is the “white working class”:

“Government figures show only 15% of white working class boys in England got five good GCSEs including maths and English last year. . . Poorer pupils from Indian and Chinese backgrounds fared much better – with 36% and 52% making that grade respectively.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7220683.stm

“White working-class pupils are the lowest-achieving group in English schools because they have low aspirations and do not do their homework, an official study shows.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/white-workingclass-pupils-are-lowest-achievers-801765.html

Those supporting Abbott are talking about the Abbott on that Andrew Neil show aren’t they? I mean, I haven’t missed an intelligent, charasmatic and articulate candidate who just happens to share the same name?

Shatterface, I’m talking about the lady that made this speech:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2008-06-11c.379.2

Widely judged to be one of the best speeches made in the House of Commons during the last Parliament. Admittedly, that’s possibly not saying much, but…

Charles Kennedy was widely derided as “Chatshow Charlie” until he got settled into the Lib Dem leadership. He ended up being the most succesful leader in the history of the party, electorally. If not for his drinking problem, I suspect he’d have done even better.

The Abbott that sits on the sofa is on an entertainment show. The Abbott that stands up in Parliament is a bloody effective MP. They happen to be the same person.

What exactly can Abbott do to re-connect Labour with its BNP-voting white working class supporters? /irony

Anyway, Abbott is a good left candidate. But she and others need to ask why it is so many strings had to be pulled in order to get her on the ballot. I don’t think 12.5% of Labour MPs is too much a level of support to demonstrate in order to be a candidate for Labour leader. She got there because of diversity, not because of her ability to inspire others, sadly. It’s annoying because whatever merits she does have, she will be seen (fairly or unfairly) as the token non-white/non-female candidate.

She is middle class (hypocritically so..), middle aged and Oxbridge-educated, so for real diversity you’d need an actual working class young/old polytechnic-educated candidate, or candidates with any of these attributes.

Blanco, I think the problem is the nomination process and system. They’re effectively asking “who are you backing to win” or “who do you most want to work for” or “who do you think is most likely to win and thus be able to give you a job”.

They should be asking the MPs “who would you be happy to serve under”, and thus MPs should be able to nominate as many people as they like, they get a separate vote much later on, and that vote is very powerful (some of them, IIRC, also get votes as members and as TU members).

They should be nominating everyone they would be happy to work for, but that’s not how the current system is interpreted, a nomination is seen as an endorsement, as a promise of a vote, as part of the campaign. That’s the wrong approach. All the MPs want to be seen to be backing the winner, before the debate has even started.

One minor point about the candidates that I have not seen discussed – would they make a good Prime Minister? I know it’s unimportant compared to the question of whether they would get Labour elected back into government…..

The article above does refer to taking on the Tory leader at PMQs, but that is only one, albeit very public, aspect. Can they actually do the job, run cabinet, make the decisions, etc.

Were the four candidates who were ministers in the last government good or bad at running their departments? What was their style? Etc.

Would they run a more collective decision-making process with proper cabinet discussion – I have been told Attlee had that style? Or would it be more sofa government with lots of unelected advisors?

The unfortunate fact for radicals is that, although the chances of a change to the electoral system look better now than for many years, the changes do not look like bringing PR at present. So historically (well, since 1945) the likelihood is that when the public gets fed up with this lot, they’ll vote the other lot back in again – which means a Labour Government, unless we are lucky enough to get a Lab-Lib Dem coalition that then brings PR. So even those of us who do not vote Labour have an interest in what the next leader would be like as a PM, should the other lot’s turn come at the next election – rather than in 13 years like last time or 18 years like the time before.

@MatGB

We should have a number/threshold for nominations that is more or less in line for those required to become a candidate in public elections, i.e. if you need 2 nominees to stand as a local councillor, then getting 30 MPs to stand as a Leader of a Party with tens of thousands of councillors and anything between 100 and 350+ MPs is not too unreasonable. Otherwise you just get lots of candidates. Then again, maybe having lots of candidates isn’t a bad idea. It depends. What the Labour lefts are concerned about is that there should be a left candidate on the ballot paper: the problem here is not the nomination system, but the simple fact that the PLP just isn’t very left-wing at all.

I also think they need to scrap their stupid voting system. An electoral college? Wtf, is this an election to President of the United States? One party member, one vote. Why trade unions and “affiliated socialist societies” should get 1 third of the votes, with MPs another and actual itty bitty members the last third, is beyond me. Except of course, when seen in the context of Labour policy, which is to downplay the contribution to modern society of the individual and treat people as blocs.

Except Blanco, they vote under AV. So each MP, when asked to vote later on, can actually vote for all the candidates they like, in order of preference, but they’re only allowed to nominate one of them. Under AV, having more candidates helps the process, as it widens the electorate, under FPTP, it hurts it.

I actually have no problem with the idea that MPS and members have a College, I’d actually propose it for the Lib Dems if I thought it’d get anywhere. The leader of the Party is both the leader of the national party and the leader of the Parliamentary party, it’s important MPs get a strong say in that, if the leader is someone they can’t work with, it can cause problems (see, for example, the end days of CKs LD leadership).

And the Unions get a separate say as a union member is an affiliate member, on a cheaper fee, than a full member. Except they recently lowered the membership fee down to bugger all, removing that argument. Personally I’d make all union members full members on equal footing, but it’s not my party. It’s what I’d propose if a union wanted to affiliate with the LDs though; if they pay the political levy, and that’s enough to cover party membership, it’s enough for me, they can have special voting rights in the same way that Liberal Youth does, but that’s it.

Diane Abbott. Some Integrity At Last

http://peterreynolds.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/diane-abbott-some-integrity-at-last/

An early and complex fundamental question that often comes to the minds of floating voters like myself is not whether a candidate for a party’s leadership is “too right-wing” or “too left-wing” but whether they would be competent in government.

The sad truth, based on the evidence, is that New Labour was not competent in government and that fact counts against those candidates who can claim with justification to have been top-placed advisers to successive New Labour governments.

@Peter

Sigh. Do I have to tell you how sick ordinary (i.e. non-LC-reading) members of the public feel about politicians that tell them to do one thing yet they themselves do another? I have nothing against an MP sending their kids to a non-state school, or driving a private car, or using private healthcare. But telling everyone else to send their kids to state schools, or stick to only public transport, or only use the NHS, whilst doing the opposite, is not good.

Whether or not you think she was right, the fact is that she doesn’t have what it takes to be leader: a persona that is not defined by its flaws. She will never get rid of the stain on her character that her hypocrisy induced. It’s not fair on her, or her mostly excellent voting record; but she did destroy the chances of a LibLab coalition, so she can’t lecture anyone else about unfairness.

Diane Abbott will always have that stain on her character [the private school stain] she may be middle class, she may be Oxbridge educated and a TV personality, but she has a background of taking the right position on a number of key issues and speaking out, very ably both in Parliament and out. She has been in Parliament longer than all of her opponents put together. She recognised from the start that the Iraq adventure stank to high heaven, none of her opponents did, most of them supported it. She is not tainted by “New Labour”, unlike her opponents,she may only have 12% of the MPs in her support so far,that is more in her favour than against.The Parliamentary Labour party needs shaking up and needs someone who will not speak the same drivel as the two Eds, two Daves, and a Nick.

For Abbott to be actually the leader is just daft. Is she even shadow cabinet material?
If she is considered to be a person of ideas, maybe she should be deputy leader or something.

What strange, strange morals some people have. Apparently sending your child to a public school and paying for it out of your own pocket is a dreadful “stain” on your character that can never be forgiven.

On the other hand using your influence to get your kids into the best selective schools miles away, as Blair, Harman etc did. That’s perfectly all right.

And if you then bring in policies to effectively privatise lots of schools – except privatisation brings in money for the taxpayer and this gives lots away with the school. But it’s OK because it’ll create lots of schools that people like yourself can send their children to, even if they don’t live near.

And of course the educational problems of the rest of country are exactly the same as those of central London, so we’ll do the same things there.

Of course if these new Academies turn out to be less successful than Plato’s, or even the schools they replaced, it doesn’t really matter. Because you can still get your offspring into the most popular schools (who’s going to turn down an influential MP?).

Privilege. It always OK – providing you’re not paying for it yourself.

If you do, apparently it’s hypocrisy

Apparently putting your kid in private school is worse than starting an illegal war too. Odd…

Ah, it’s Mad Frankie Fisher – the sort of man you could imagine shooting Lassie in the back of the head with a shotgun whilst fucking it rigorously. The sort of man who would take umpteen holidays a year just to shop in the duty frees out of principle. The sort of man who would scream at a group of children entering a public swimming pool that they were stealing his tax pounds…

“Apparently putting your kid in private school is worse than starting an illegal war too. Odd…”

Much worse – even when the war has led to the killing of 100,000 or so civilians through foreseeable ethnic and sectarian conflicts and collateral damage.

Curiously, what doesn’t count as blatant hypocrisy is starting a war without sanction by the UN Security Council after making a keynote speech saying: “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

#10

what he said.

This is a joke isn’t it, she’s not fit to be an MP let alone the leader of a party.

I thought Diane Abbott did well at the NS hustings. Her participation hasn’t just broadened the choice of candidates, it seems set to change the terms of the debate itself. The Trident issue is now very definitely in the frame. Also, the Balls/Ed Miliband tactic of playing the immigration card now looks pretty unsustainable. I had previously thought Ed M would be a shoo-in, but now it won’t be so easy. Diane Abbott really could have a ‘Clegg effect’.

What pisses me off most about Abbott sending her kid to private school is that she supported the Labour government’s move to abolish Assisted Places, which meant that talented kids from poor backgrounds could go to private schools. Because of her, now only rich kids (like the kids of an MP) can get a decent education, either by being trained to pass grammar school entrance exams or having private school fees paid for them.

So she kicked out the ladder underneath her. Similarly, what has she done to encourage more black and female people to enter politics? She has hogged a safe Labour seat for over 20 years. Isn’t it time she stepped aside for a new generation? I’d rather see someone like Rushanara Ali or Chukka Umunna at the top of the party. Abbott has had decades to influence Labour and has done Sweet FA. She couldn’t even get onto the ballot paper without massive help from everyone. So much for a meritocratic party.

A half serious question.

If Abbott wins, does Harman have to stand down in the name of gender equality?

There is a token candidate for the Labour Party leadership who struggled to get enough nominations to stand and who has no chance of winning.

That’s not what tokenism is about, at least not in my understanding of it:

* The Token Minority allows the producers of the show to broaden the appeal of the show by giving more viewers protagonists they can identify with.
* The Token Minority is useful for bringing in discussions of racial issues, gender issues or homophobia into the plot.
* The Token Minority helps the producers feel a little better about using a Scary Minority Suspect in every other case.
* The Token Minority character allows the producers to make race jokes related to minority without any shame.
* The Token Minority character allows the producers to avoid criticism from minority groups.
* The Token Minority character fulfills the executives’ desire for the show to be more ethnically respectful.

How does the electoral college arithmetic work?

I imagine not in DA’s favour.

Anyway, some discussion of the odds as ever here:

http://www.politicalbetting.com

My personal suspicion is that Diane Abbott could not competently run a whelk stall.

Despite that, her presence on the ballot has, as noted above, probably stymied the anti-immigration policies mooted by other candidate, placed the issue of Trident back on the agenda and probably – in view of the utterly hypocritical grilling she is going to get from the other candidates about sending her child to private school – made the coming debates about both education and aspiration more interesting. For that, we should be grateful.

As I have been saying for months and months on this site, Labour’s problem is that it lacks ideas and the problem for the leadership contest is that none of the front-runners can be identified with a coherent body of thought within the party that is distinguishable from the others. This made it likely that the leadership was going to become a beauty contest.

The fact that Abbott has been a serial rebel means that she does represent a distinct (if not entirely coherent) view. From that distance she will be able to open up areas of debate with the other candidates which would not otherwise have been touched upon.

Plus, if it turns out that the wider party votes in her favour while the parliamentary party gives her a drubbing, it might even prompt a little useful introspection on why Labour isn’t connecting with the electorate.

The question any leadership candidate needs to answer is this: why do we need a Labour party? The Conservative-LibDem coalition is a centrist mix of social liberalism, economic centrism, and political liberalism/anti-statism. What can Labour now offer that is better than, distinctive from, and can be defined not purely in terms of opposition to the current government?

What can Labour now offer that is better than, distinctive from, and can be defined not purely in terms of opposition to the current government?

Good question. Got an answer?

Cos I’m damned sure none of the candidates have.

18. Bob b . The sort of people who have experience often do not have the time to be involved in politics . The days when a foreman in the construction or manufcaturing industries who had served in the armed forces were councillors are long gone. Often owners of small and medium sized companies or farmers were councillors or MPs. Due to history, up to the mid 80s, many male politicians would have had military experience . Healey’s recognised ability as Sec Of Def, especially in handling the Indonesian Conflict was due to his time as a Beach Master in the Italian Campaign.

I would suggest it is the lack of experience of many MPsbefore the entered politics is major cause of our problems. A Labour MP who had served In the army in Palestine, Oman ( 50s and 70s), Yemen in late 60s, Kuwait or Bosnia would have brought the sort of wisdom born of experience sadly lacking in the government’s actions withg rgerad to Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem is compounded is that many of the associates and friends of most politicians comefrom the same mould. How many Labour politicians had friends or associates who had served in the armed forces who could warn of the problems?

Thatcher had Carrington, Whitelaw and Pym who had the MC in Normandy; her husband had been in the artillery and Bill Deedes, a close friend won the MC. Consequently the Conservative government had cabinet ministers who had personal experience of war. Thatcher made sure the troops had the correct equipment for the Falklands; Blair sent British service personnel to war, in Iraq and Afghanistan without adequate planning and resources.

“My personal suspicion is that Diane Abbott could not competently run a whelk stall.”

I was wondering how long it would be before we got down to straight personal abuse in the leadership elections. Personally, I can hardly bear to wait to hear from those other leadership contenders, especially the ones who worked so long advising in HM Treasury, about how we got to a situation where: “Houses are less affordable than 50 years ago although the quality of homes has improved, according to the Halifax. The lender, now owned by Lloyds Banking Group, said that over the last five decades UK house prices have risen by 2.7% a year, allowing for inflation.

“This was above the 2% annual increase in real earnings over the same period. Prices increased the most in the last decade, and separately lenders warned that lending to first-time buyers would be constrained for ‘some time to come’.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8468605.stm

The Guardian was warning back in 2001 about the black hole in Britain’s public finances:

“Labour’s pledges to tackle poverty and drag Britain’s underfunded NHS up to European levels have opened up a £17bn black hole in the government’s finances that will have to be plugged by higher taxes, the UK’s leading financial experts said last night.

“The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), an independent thinktank, said it would cost the equivalent of 6p on the basic rate of income tax for Labour to match the average European Union health spending, introduce new tax breaks for the working poor and repair the damage to the public finances caused by economic slowdown.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/nov/29/uk.budget2002

@35: “Thatcher made sure the troops had the correct equipment for the Falklands; Blair sent British service personnel to war, in Iraq and Afghanistan without adequate planning and resources.”

I was alarmed to read last year about the scale of wasted spending in the MOD:

“The government has been accused of trying to suppress a report that found the Ministry of Defence is wasting billions of pounds every year as a result of ordering projects it cannot afford.

“The report, commissioned by former defence secretary John Hutton and led by ex-MoD aide Bernard Gray, found that the MoD is wasting between £1.5bn and £2.5bn per year. Its findings were due to have been published before MPs broke up for the summer recess but its release has been delayed, with the prime minister announcing last month that the report would now form part of a further defence review. An unnamed MoD official told Channel 4 News yesterday that Number 10 had ‘panicked’ at the findings of the report and intervened to prevent its publication.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/06/mod-defence-equipment-projects-waste

“The Conservative-LibDem coalition is a centrist mix of social liberalism, economic centrism, and political liberalism/anti-statism. What can Labour now offer that is better than, distinctive from, and can be defined not purely in terms of opposition to the current government?”

There is nothing “economically centrist” about carefully targeting cuts so that they will hurt children (£300 million more out of schools today) and homeless people (£30 million out of the supporting people programme), while simultaneously removing regulations on slum landlords.

“cuts so that they will hurt …….homeless people (£30 million out of the supporting people programme), while simultaneously removing regulations on slum landlords.”

Are you sure you’ve quite grasped this economics thing yet?

Regulations on slum landlords increase the cost of providing slums.

Homeless people are homeless because either there isn’t housing for them or because they cannot afford it.

So, lowering the price of providing housing will raise the amount of such housing on offer: meaning that some homeless people will be able to find/afford housing and thus stop being homeless.

Now I agree, this might not be the way that you’d like it to be done but there’s nothing odd or illogical about this.

Lower the cost of supply, supply increases, fewer homeless…….

“Regulations on slum landlords increase the cost of providing slums.”

The point of the exercise is to reduce the number of slums, and increase the number of decent homes, while simultaneously providing people with the support and income to ensure they can sustain a tenancy.

People become homeless for a variety of reasons – e.g. when poor health caused by living in a slum makes them too ill to continue working.

There are more variables then your crude model allows for, which is why what you are saying doesn’t correspond to actual reality. That’s both a specific point about this issue, and a more general point about your ideology.

don,

Regulation does not generally increase the standard of housing. Legislation might – make it an offence to knowingly provide substandard accomodation to rent (so the agent not the owner is responsible, or the agent can notify the owner if work is needed and they cannot authorise it). Quite easy to define an acceptable standard of accomodation (no damp or other health risks; secure; basic amenities available). Far easier than regulating everything through layers of bureaucracy surely, plus the real scumbags actually become criminals.

I never understand the requirement for regulation when simple legislation would do the job.

From the discussion above here about the costs of housing and regulations, there’s amazingly no reference to the house-price bubble in Britian, which is all very curious:

“The International Monetary Fund said British property was overvalued by 40% and the growing credit crisis is likely to have a ‘sizeable impact’ on property prices. It said house-price rises in the UK, Ireland and Spain have been surging even faster than those in the US before the recent market collapse, making these countries particularly vulnerable to market volatility.”
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages-and-homes/house-prices/article.html?in_article_id=425420&in_page_id=57#ixzz0qSU8yUWg

Just how inflated house prices became, can be judged from this graph of the ratio between average house prices and average earnings:
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/graphs-average-house-price-to-earnings-ratio.php

The government was warned about the bubble in 2002 and did nothing:

“CHARLES GOODHART, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, warned yesterday that the Bank is failing to take sufficient account of the house price boom in setting interest rates. His warning comes amid growing fears among economists that house prices, fuelled by the lowest interest rates for 38 years, are getting out of control. Yesterday, new figures showed that homeowners are borrowing record amounts against the rising value of their homes.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2758979/Goodhart-warns-on-house-price-boom.html

Since we know that bursting asset-price bubbles bring havoc to an economy, why didn’t the Treasury act in time?

DA is a clown. She attacked Bliar and Harman for hypocritically sending their children to selective schools and then sent her little brute to a private school. She bangs on about race and then suggested that “”blonde, blue-eyed Finnish girls” (a bit of sexism too eh) couldn’t possibly nurse black patients.

She is generally incoherent and endlessly self-promoting.

Could we be reminded, please, of politicians who aren’t self-promoting? I rather thought it went with the career.

Indeed, Bob…. I’m finding it very interesting to note the various objections begin raised to DA – she’s apparently “self-promoting”, “cynical”, “arrogant”, “dishonest”, “hypocritical”, etc, etc… I’m just waiting for someone to pan her for being bipedal and oxygen-breathing.

Interestingly, I have seen little to no criticism of her voting record or policy preferences…

@Dunc — throw in racist and incoherent too, please. I am told coherence is generally to be desired in a politician.

Agreed with Mat at 10. I cannot see a Labour party run by the milliband’s being a party I can even remotely offer support to, nor Balls (as if that was ever in doubt), nor Burnham (who has largely shown himself to be more of the same as well). It is only the likes of Abbott and the direction she would take that could get people like myself back on board with giving Labour a chance.