Oooh, use of the word “left” in your article. Ah but only as in “leftfield” – God forbid (the Big Man’s sided with Blair isn’t he?) you could possibly mean a leftish candidate. No, let’s have Milburn or Milliband.

Once again it’s the public’s fault for being stupid by not recognising your brand of right-wingism is better than Cameron’s, as you say: the… “public will eventually be forced to concede it, once they can get beyond their current inability to see anything good in what Labour is saying.”

When will people like you understand that we the great unwashed public have had enough of the mendacious, billionaire-loving New Labour project. If we want money-grabbing right wing we should know that we can order that by selecting Conservative at the checkout. We would like the opportunity to choose leftward side of centre when voting Labour.

Can we really describe Milburn as ‘leftfield’?

I am still not convinced there is going to be a contest. I hope there is for all our sakes, but never underestimate Labour MPs who have had the stuffing knocked out of them by constant whipping.

The good thing is for once the parliamentary Labour Party cannot blame anyone but themselves for picking a dud like Brown. We in the membership are totally absolved of blame, because they refused to give us a say in leader and we have no say in policy anymore either.

Sam Coates and Francis Elliott on The Times reckon it will boil down to a contest between him and Harriet Harman, which, with due respect to Sam and Francis, is no contest.

Harman has to run, otherwise why did she go for the Deputy job? Also, never underestimate Harman’s desire to play on her gender (as part of a rather ill-defined feminism) as a means of building support.

As for Milburn – don’t make me laugh. At best, he’d end up being the Heseltine in this sorry business – the assassin who doesn’t get the crown. At worst, he’d be exposed as even more of a Blairite than some of those in the Cabinet – more of the same with a Geordie accent (and just recall what a damp squib the 20/20 vision intervention was last year).

I will give my more considered views on the main contenders at a later date, but if the field remains as it is, Milliband must be the man

Well, the field won’t remain as it is until Brown quits/is pushed, then all bets are off. Labour needs as big and diverse a leadership contest as possible if ousting Brown is going to work, even if the result is a victory for New Labour rather than anything more radical or social democratic. What it doesn’t need is a desperate search for a quick-fix contest/coronation. Having read Milliband’s article, I didn’t see anything in it that was significantly different from what New Labour is currently offering. (The observation about Cameron isn’t rocket science, the mere fact he doesn’t come across as fogeyish (Hague), dull (IDS) or creepy (Howard) gives him a head start.) This means either Milliband has better – but not necessarily more radical or less Blairite – ideas up his sleeve, or that he’s simply offering to be a more telegenic salesman than Brown and therefore a better match for Cameron.

I can’t see why anyone is interested at the moment. It will take a miracle of earth shattering proportions for Labour to win the next election. Any leader at that time would have to accept responsibility for the defeat, however unfairly, so is unlikely to last to the one after that. I would have thought anyone with real ambitions would sit on their hands until after an election.

I would have thought anyone with real ambitions would sit on their hands until after an election.

But wouldn’t this run counter to a key New Labour argument: that you have to be in power – or better yet, be PM – to do anything?

Paul, to my mind, your post seems to be calling for another coronation, or at least, a one-sided fight that is barely a meaningful contest.

I think if Labour is to be reinvigourated (and I mean, invigourated in the sense that the rank-and-file are energized, not just a change that the public at large finds refreshing) then it needs a proper leadership contest. This would have the virtue of containing the “bloodletting” into something vaguely constructive. Let’s have Harman, Miliband, Cruddas, McDonnell, and John Denham in the mix, and let the victor win it in a bruising scrap.

Well, John McDonnell’s decided to put up and challenge Brown.

I thought Michael White’s attempt to rubbish Miliband the day before was spectacularly stupid (someone, presumably in No. 10, said that he had considered resigning as Foreign Secretary because he could not cope with the workload). It might even have provoked Miliband to write his article in retaliation.

As a (recently) ex-member of the Labour party I suppose that it is not my business who they choose to lead them. I agree that Miliband is now the logical Blairite candidate, but if I were Alan Johnson I would not take the number two slot on that ticket.

I agree that Milburn would be a stronger Blairite candidate because he represents something of a break from Brown. Miliband did not have the guts to run against Brown when he should have last year and also represents continuity with some of the worst bits of the Blair/Brown axis that people seem to be so sick of.

Finally, he has been a fairly crap Foreign Secretary (his only reference to his own brief in the Guardian article was where he defended the invasion of Iraq) which will count against him for anyone who cares about such things.

I don’t get why Miliband is seen as such a strong contender given that he’s spectacularly failed to have any impact on the government since his brief.

In that regard, I also wonder why people keep ruling our Harriet Harman. The commentariat may not like her but she does have a lot of grassroots support and she’s been practically the only one who has pushed policies that were welcomed by the soft left.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but the reason I think Harman should be ruled out as a candidate is because, although she does stand for a sort of ill-defined feminist/egalitarian tendency within the party, she has a spectacularly poor record as a minister. She was so useless as Social Security Secretary from 1997-98 that Blair had to sack her, despite her supposed popularity with “Middle England,” and unlike Miliband, Straw, Johnson or for that matter Milburn, she has never since been trusted either with a major office of state or a major spending department. I am afraid I find the idea of her as Prime Minister totally inconceivable.

Sunny: …and [Harman's] been practically the only one who has pushed policies that were welcomed by the soft left.

Er, John Cruddas? Deputy Leadership contest?

Paul: I’ve got no candle for Harman either, but given that she won the Deputy leadership post indicates that somebody loves her, plus there would be a gap to the left of Milliband/Milburn/Milli Vanilli that could be exploited As I recall, she got ditched as Social Security secretary as much for getting caught in a departmental spat with Frank Field and an inability to be sufficiently on-message re. axing lone parent benefit, than for incompetence. You could even use the gender argument to explain why she’s never been given a ‘big’ ministerial post since. Oh, and which ‘big’ Ministerial brief did Blair hold before becoming PM? In other words, if there’s an ‘open’ contest’, the result might be more unpredictable (or at least more beneficial) than anyone thinks – unless New Labour really prefers stitch-ups to democracy and debate.

I can’t rule out Harman, simply because I loathed her prior to becoming Deputy Leader, and she still managed to win that. Never rule anything out with the quirks of the Labour Party.

And I agree with Sunny that Miliband has been a thoroughly unremarkable minister. BTW. As someone with deep links with agriculture, may I also say he was garbage running DEFRA, too.

Milburn has long been out of the spotlight, but I did rate him.

Er, John Cruddas? Deputy Leadership contest?

I really hope Jon Cruddas doesnt even come near that poisoned chalice.

And to respond to Paul’s point She was so useless as Social Security Secretary from 1997-98 that Blair had to sack her, despite her supposed popularity with “Middle England

In addition to Redpesto’s point above, I think that most of our ministers currently have been pretty unremarkable in their posts to be honest. Just saying, compare her to others and she doesn’t look too bad.

Wait a moment. It is usually a good idea to get the likely runners straight before tipping the winner or shouting the odds.

The list of those who have indicated, alto o sotto voce, that they would not refuse their party’s call seems to be, in alphabetical order:

John Cruddas
Alastair Darling
Harriet Harman
Alan Johnson
John McDonnell
David Miliband
Jack Straw

Others who have said nothing, but have not protested when others mention their names include:

Alan Milburn
Ed Miliband
Jaqui Smith

And the first question is “Who have I left out?” (Charles Clarke?)

When and if the race is called, the maximum number who could come under starter’s orders is probably 7. So the second question is “Who won’t make the cut of 45 MP nominations?”

The third question is “Who is likely to be hindered or helped by the form of the electoral college procedure?”

Only then do we get to the question we want to debate “Who is the least worst of those likely to reach the home straight?”

Blimey, isn’t it starting to dawn how much of a surprise it is that Labour has survived so long in power with this paucity of talent at the top of the party.

Can any of them make a serious claim to be able to run things? Can any of them claim a track record worthy of public trust?

I can see how the pretenders complement each other for their individual weaknesses, but do any have requisite strengths to succeed at the top, or would any achievement be success by default?

Miliband has shown his propensity to be bullied and cowed into not making a stand (one wonders if he must have a vindictive streak), Harman comes as part of a package (with Jack Dromey), likewise Balls who is just an over-promoted yes-man, Milburn has some backbone but not the guts for leadership, Alan Johnson speaks like he has an ideological compass but no brain (which may be enough). McDonnell and Clarke come with baggage, while Denham, Hutton and Miliband jr aren’t as obviously ambitious for themselves; Alexander may be too little of a change and Straw is physically dangerous.

I still can’t get away from the idea that little Jack Straw is sitting in his corner, biding his time, waiting to prostrate himself for the greater good. He’ll just watch all the other contenders knock themselves out from his position of safety on the sidelines before he strides across a a battlefield littered with the corpses of other individuals hopes and ambitions before making the coup de grace.

I disagree that this is solely an internal Labour matter, because whoever is chosen by the party will shortly be seeking the endorsement of the country. This is now a damage limitation exercise – so any over-excitement of the type displayed by both Milibands recently is injudicious and misplaced. Such a miscalculation is demeaning to their wider interests and therefore damage their own prospects. Brown’s change agenda has failed and is dead once wrested from his hands. So Labour must seek a safe pair of hands who is experienced and familiar with the current workings, because to push on with a radical platform at this stage in a parliament wil lonly further expose the lack of mandate they hold.

To seek anything other than a caretaker at this stage is to run the risk of deepening the divide which exists both inside the party and externally with the electorate. And even imagining the cracks can be papered over, the risk that a full manifesto under a newly incumbent leadership would be rejected would be a clear signal of the end of any resurrected Labour project, new or not, and mark the beginnning of the end for the party as we have come to know it. This may be no bad thing in the overall scale of events, but those currently involved won’t see it that way.

“Blimey, isn’t it starting to dawn how much of a surprise it is that Labour has survived so long in power with this paucity of talent at the top of the party.”

I was about to make an argument along the lines of “Been in power for so long – lost need for many great leaders – preferred great administrators instead”, but then it occurred to me that the Cabinet has few enough of those. The paucity of talent is indeed startling. I could recommend Harman as leader, but only for my own schadenfreude. If I actually wanted the best for Labour, I’d just let Gordon muddle along, let him be wiped out in 2009/10, and pick an anti-Gordon afterwards. Like, someone with a personality.

I say give the PM atleast 6 more months, and see how it turns out. There is no “hurry to worry” why infect a new leader with a recession.

I think that most of our ministers currently have been pretty unremarkable in their posts to be honest.

Bit of a difference between being unremarkable (Milipede) and being sacked for being incompetent matey.

Okay, let’s see….

John Cruddas – too left wing?

Alastair Darling – no, based on his current form as Chancellor; too easily bullied by vested (big business) interests; comacross a slightly less dull than Brown

Harriet Harman – in with a chance (see my earlier post), but not as ‘progressive’ as she wants people to think

Alan Johnson – the bottom dropped out of the ‘working class hero’ market when Prescott retired; would have to stand on a much more radical platform to have any chance; a better bet for Opposition leader?

John McDonnell – too left wing

David Miliband – as the late Fred Truman used to say: ‘Changing the bowler, but not the bowling’ (if he really has no policy differences with Brown, then all he can be is a better salesman); the New Labour continuity candidate

Jack Straw – the eternal survivor/kingmaker; reminds me of Beria (not for ideological reasons, more that he’s the one who endorses or facilitates whatever stupid ideas emerge from the leader); will ensure he backs the winner

Others who have said nothing, but have not protested when others mention their names include:

Alan Milburn – see my earlier post

Ed Miliband – not if his brother’s running

Jaqui Smith – hmmm, interesting; can’t ‘do a Harman’ without splitting the gender vote; anybody have any idea what she stands for beyond the Home Office?

The question after that is not Diversity’s “Only then do we get to the question we want to debate ‘Who is the least worst of those likely to reach the home straight?’” – but who is mostl likely to offer the combination of policies and personality to enable Labour to either win or lose with some dignity?

(Pause)

At this point, I’m stuffed if I know: none of them look the finished article.