My guess is that David M will win the most first preference votes but that Ed M may eventually emerge as the winner. The press will then try to portray him as far more left wing than he actually is, possibly referring to his Marxist father. However, if he can hold his nerve, he has plenty of time (if the coalition lasts) to develop policies which while left of centre are a long way from Marxism. He would do well to follow his brother in stealing Vince Cable's mansion tax proposal.

My guess is that David M will win the most first preference votes but that Ed M may eventually emerge as the winner. The press will then try to portray him as far more left wing than he actually is, possibly referring to his Marxist father. However, if he can hold his nerve, he has plenty of time (if the coalition lasts) to develop policies which while left of centre are a long way from Marxism. He would do well to follow his brother in stealing Vince Cable's mansion tax proposal.

 

David is just really Blair without the charisma, we already have a Blair type in power now so having Milliband as Labour leader will not offer any real change.

 

Diane Abbott would be my choice as leader if I was a Labour supporter, comes across really well on tv

Edited August 30, 201014 yr by I ❤ JustinBieber

Abbott comes across well but can you imagine the way she will be treated by the press? She'll be absolutely slaughtered, starting with her choice of school for her children.

Abbott comes across well but can you imagine the way she will be treated by the press? She'll be absolutely slaughtered, starting with her choice of school for her children.

 

I don't think she did anything wrong sending her son to a private school tbh, she did what was best for her son as opposed to putting politics first, especially as her son is black sending him to a inner city state school could have resulted in him getting into gang culture or being racially abused by white kids.

 

Fair play to her

I don't think she did anything wrong sending her son to a private school tbh, she did what was best for her son as opposed to putting politics first, especially as her son is black sending him to a inner city state school could have resulted in him getting into gang culture or being racially abused by white kids.

 

Fair play to her

You know as well as I do that the press won't report it like that. They'll also do a lot of digging to find some of her more outrageous quotes from the past.

 

After all, we all know that the press will take every opportunity to print that banana picture if David M wins just as they constantly showed Neil Kinnock falling over on Brighton beach and William Hague in his baseball cap.

You know as well as I do that the press won't report it like that. They'll also do a lot of digging to find some of her more outrageous quotes from the past.

 

After all, we all know that the press will take every opportunity to print that banana picture if David M wins just as they constantly showed Neil Kinnock falling over on Brighton beach and William Hague in his baseball cap.

 

Oh absolutely but I don't think the press have the sway these days that they used to

 

Almost every single tabloid and broadsheet (bar 3) rabidly supported Cameron and committed some of the most vile character assassinations on Brown/Labour I have ever seen and still Cameron couldnt get a majority.

Oh absolutely but I don't think the press have the sway these days that they used to

 

Almost every single tabloid and broadsheet (bar 3) rabidly supported Cameron and committed some of the most vile character assassinations on Brown/Labour I have ever seen and still Cameron couldnt get a majority.

My own political beliefs aside, one reason for being delighted that the Tories didn't win an overall majority was that Murdoch didn't get what he wanted. Unfortunately, that hasn't led to an improvement in coverage of politics. If anything, it's getting worse. Journalists often go on about how little trust we have in politicians. They ignore the fact that journalists themselves generally join estate agents in the bottom three.

After all, we all know that the press will take every opportunity to print that banana picture if David M wins just as they constantly showed Neil Kinnock falling over on Brighton beach and William Hague in his baseball cap.

 

To be honest, that banana picture makes me want to vote for him. It's just as well I don't vote in mainland Britain.

 

 

To be honest, that banana picture makes me want to vote for him. It's just as well I don't vote in mainland Britain.

But you're now in a country where lots of people think Sarah Palin is sane.

Diane Abbott would be my choice as leader if I was a Labour supporter, comes across really well on tv

 

Although she would be a disaster as leader, I do think she should have a position in the shadow cabinet - Work & Pensions secretary for instance.

Although she would be a disaster as leader, I do think she should have a position in the shadow cabinet - Work & Pensions secretary for instance.

 

Yeah for years I have watched the program she does with Michael Portillo and she comes across as quite likeable, I am impressed with her displays on there, that doesn't mean I would want her as a future PM but she is one of the Labour MP's that I warm to

 

Even though they were opposite ends of the spectrum to me I admired Robin Cook, Tony Banks, Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner etc

Edited August 30, 201014 yr by I ❤ JustinBieber

Yeah for years I have watched the program she does with Michael Portillo and she comes across as quite likeable, I am impressed with her displays on there, that doesn't mean I would want her as a future PM but she is one of the Labour MP's that I warm to

 

Even though they were opposite ends of the spectrum to me I admired Robin Cook, Tony Banks, Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner etc

Who doesn't have a soft spot for Dennis Skinner?

 

I met Robin Cook when I was working in Dublin and he was doing a book signing. It wasn't very well attended so I spent some time chatting to him. He was a great politician but his looks and his voice meant he never had any chance of leading his party.

 

I've long had a soft spot for Ken Clarke because he doesn't care what the party leadership thinks about what he says. The Tories were as mad not to elect him as leader in 1997 s Labour were not to elect Denis Healey in 1980.

 

I always thought William Hague was a fool to contest the leadership as early as 1997. I think subsequent events have proved me right.

Who doesn't have a soft spot for Dennis Skinner?

 

I met Robin Cook when I was working in Dublin and he was doing a book signing. It wasn't very well attended so I spent some time chatting to him. He was a great politician but his looks and his voice meant he never had any chance of leading his party.

 

I've long had a soft spot for Ken Clarke because he doesn't care what the party leadership thinks about what he says. The Tories were as mad not to elect him as leader in 1997 s Labour were not to elect Denis Healey in 1980.

 

I always thought William Hague was a fool to contest the leadership as early as 1997. I think subsequent events have proved me right.

 

Yeah Skinner was/is quite a character :lol:

 

I respected Cook even more through his anti war stance and following his principles, I was very saddened to hear of his death

 

Clarke is a decent bloke, sort of guy i would love to have a beer with, massive football fan too his views on Europe meant that he would never stand a chance of the leadership but he is a good bloke

 

Hague is a witty guy, I hope if anything happens to Cameron that Hague gets another shot at the leadership, he lost a lot of credibility with those silly drinking 14 pints comments and so on but he has matured into a real statesman

Yeah Skinner was/is quite a character :lol:

 

I respected Cook even more through his anti war stance and following his principles, I was very saddened to hear of his death

 

Clarke is a decent bloke, sort of guy i would love to have a beer with, massive football fan too his views on Europe meant that he would never stand a chance of the leadership but he is a good bloke

 

Hague is a witty guy, I hope if anything happens to Cameron that Hague gets another shot at the leadership, he lost a lot of credibility with those silly drinking 14 pints comments and so on but he has matured into a real statesman

The Tories didn't elect Clarke for the same reasons Labour didn't elect Healey. They were both wrong.

 

Hague's 14 pints claims were as stupid as Blair's claim to have run away from school and Clegg's response to Piers Morgan's puerile question about how many women he had slept with.

Voted today, in this order:

 

1. Ed Balls

2. Ed Miliband

3. Andy Burnham

4. Diane Abbott

5. David Miliband

 

Even though Ed M is by FAR my favourite, I tactically made Balls my top choice because I want him to be Shadow Chancellor, and the chances of that probably increase if he finishes in a strong third place.

My guess is that David M will win the most first preference votes but that Ed M may eventually emerge as the winner.

 

David will definitely need a clear lead on first preferences to win, as the majority of second (and third/fourth/fifth) preferences will go to Ed (Abbott and Balls supporters are definitely ideologically closest to Ed, while the vast majority of Burnham's supporters are from northern England, who also I would say are more likely to gravitate to Ed).

 

But frequent (unscientific) surveys on the fairly widely-read LabourList blog have shown that, just on first preferences, Ed has consistently been very close on David's heels, with Ed even taking a small lead one week in mid-August, which is obviously bad news for David. With that said, the events of the past couple of weeks, with Mandelson and Blair wading in and much higher press coverage could have transformed the race, but I'm not sure which one it will have benefitted frankly.

Comprehensive opinion poll by YouGov shows that Ed now has a very small lead on first preferences (compared to a relatively comfortable lead for David the last time YouGov did a poll in late July). Given most expect re-allocated votes to give Ed a leg-up, it looks as though he is now the frontrunner!

 

EDIT: Ok, I was slightly wrong... David leads on first preferences by four points, but Ed leads by 51% to 49% when votes are re-allocated.

Voted the other day, in order:

 

1. Ed Miliband

2. Ed Balls

3. Andy Burnham

4. David Miliband

5. Diane Abbott

 

Nothing against Abbott, I actually agree with the vast majority of what she says but she would get torn apart as leader. Both Eds are way out front for me.

I voted:

 

1. Ed Miliband

2. David Miliband

3. Diane Abbott

4. Ed Balls

5. Andy Burnham

 

I realise that the nature of AV means I basically wasted my second preference, yes :P Overall though, I don't really mind which Miliband gets it - I'd obviously prefer Ed, but David is by no means the massive Blairite he's been painted as, and is certainly very capable of delivering landslides at the same time as incremental leftwards change. Ed Balls has impressed me a LOT over this campaign but I think he's a certainty for Chancellorship anyway, so I didn't bother putting him higher. I was toying with the idea of putting Diane first to get her a place in the ShadCab, but eventually relented and put a Miliband duo on top. Andy Burnham's had a couple of interesting ideas, but ultimately I can't bring myself to vote for someone who supports New Labour entirely on crime and punishment and civil liberties, and he's been very unimpressive over most of the campaign.

I tried the survey here which said that Diane Abbott came closest to matching my views. Not too surprising given the questions asked.