Toby Perkins said it was Kendall who said it in response but the news reporter on bbc bews after said it was Cooper and i thought the same.

 

Whatd you think f the debate?

It's very clear from the clip that it was Kendall - she just said it after Kuenssberg moved onto Yvette.

 

The debate didn't make me think - none of them were great. I'm probably more likely to vote Andy Burnham as second preference now because I'm getting sick of how utterly dull and Ed lite Yvette is coming across with this inoffensiveness strategy. At least Andy might connect with a few people.

It's not especially useful as it's a poll including Labour voters rather than Labour members, so it's both a small sample and we can't gauge much as polling supporters wasn't very accurate during the last leadership contest, but thought it would be worth noting nonetheless:

 

Watching last night's debate, my feeling was Hazza Harman would be better than all of them.

Don't be absurd.

 

(The standard is obviously Hilary Benn.)

Was he any good in PMQs?

 

Him against Osborne does seem like a counterfactual written in 2004 by someone on crack.

He came across very statesmanlike. If I believed in the 'let's have an interim leader for a couple of years' prescription (I don't) I could think of far worse people to have in. He'd make a terrific Foreign Secretary.

 

(:D at the counterfactual. Where we are now probably shows the big peril of counterfactuals really - there'll always be Liz Kendalls and Chuka Umunnas who just don't show up until fairly close to the fact. Even the most optimistic of Tory counterfactualists in 2004 probably would have held off making Cameron leader until 2009 at least, if they even had him on the radar.)

For me, from the first debate, Yvette Cooper came across as the most leaderly, Liz Kendall caught my attention the most, although not always for the right reasons, Andy Burnham worried me as he came across like Miliband with a Northern accent, whilst Jeremy Corbyn was just repeated left-wing populist soundbite-grabbing claptrap.

Was he any good in PMQs?

 

Him against Osborne does seem like a counterfactual written in 2004 by someone on crack.

 

He stuck to a topic that was relevant and that he knows absolutely everything about and didn't let it go down to the usual slabbering match so Osborne felt uncomfortable because he couldn't play his games but did ensure he generally looked like a PM in waiting.

 

The one time GO tried to be schoolboy like he was made to look stupid because Benn asked about ISIL and since it was the first question Osborne first congratulated Benn on leading the debate at the disbatch box saying 'your father would be proud' before saying its sad to see no Benn on the labour leadership ballot but there are plenty of Bennites!

 

It went down like a lead baloon due to the serious nature of the debate.

According to the New Statesman, Labour MPs now consider Yvette Cooper to be the frontrunner.

It's not so much down to anything she's done as an assumption she'll get all the second preferences. I can't see two months of her trying to say as little as possible not starting to wear thin/become a joke at some point. I think she's really running the risk of encouraging more of Liz Kendall's voters to put Andy as a second preference - or even more disastrously, saying so little to actually motivate anyone to vote for her that she doesn't make it to the final two.

It's not so much down to anything she's done as an assumption she'll get all the second preferences. I can't see two months of her trying to say as little as possible not starting to wear thin/become a joke at some point. I think she's really running the risk of encouraging more of Liz Kendall's voters to put Andy as a second preference - or even more disastrously, saying so little to actually motivate anyone to vote for her that she doesn't make it to the final two.

That said I could be tremendously underestimating the capacity of Labour members to just go for the feel-good salve, given the horrifying spectacle that is a good chunk of my Twitter and Facebook feed each day being dominated by people who've responded to the post-traumatic stress of the election result by convincing themselves that Jeremy Corbyn not only could ever win an election, but will win in 2020. I'm seriously hoping it's just the total circle jerk echo chamber that is leftist social media because I couldn't really face five years of that.

Who do you want to win personally Qass?

Liz Kendall.

 

At this stage though I'm not sure she'll win - I get the sense that it'll be a bit like Portillo in 2001, where it was an election too early for it to have really sunk in for a lot of members that just because people nod when they agree with your pet policies (substitute immigration for NHS/zero hours contracts) it doesn't mean people will trust you if they think you're wrong and don't really have much to say for them on most everything else. Also, similarly to Portillo 2001, I think going for a moderate pitch to the voters without having done the proper groundwork beforehand so you can take the membership with you might not work. Liz really needs to be delivering a bit more of the old time religion to get ordinary members on board with her and remind them exactly why winning matters, even if they have to endure some compromises along the way. I don't think there's anywhere near enough focus on her early years pitch, for example, which is something that could make more of a difference to inequality than literally anything a Labour government's done since SureStart.

 

I think I could live with Burnham (so long as Watson doesn't win too).

Liz Kendall.

 

At this stage though I'm not sure she'll win - I get the sense that it'll be a bit like Portillo in 2001, where it was an election too early for it to have really sunk in for a lot of members that just because people nod when they agree with your pet policies (substitute immigration for NHS/zero hours contracts) it doesn't mean people will trust you if they think you're wrong and don't really have much to say for them on most everything else. Also, similarly to Portillo 2001, I think going for a moderate pitch to the voters without having done the proper groundwork beforehand so you can take the membership with you might not work. Liz really needs to be delivering a bit more of the old time religion to get ordinary members on board with her and remind them exactly why winning matters, even if they have to endure some compromises along the way. I don't think there's anywhere near enough focus on her early years pitch, for example, which is something that could make more of a difference to inequality than literally anything a Labour government's done since SureStart.

 

I think I could live with Burnham (so long as Watson doesn't win too).

 

Did you watch the Newsnight chat with some of the swing voters in the audience after the Nuneaton hustings? (They seemed to deliberately pick out people OTHER than the diehard lefties who had largely been asking the questions in the hustings itself.)

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05zr...snight-17062015 (from 8:15)

 

One woman did mention in passing that Labour needed to show they were careful with money, and another said immigration was the big thing for him. But the main feeling from them was that there was no "vision" from any of the candidates, that they had no convictions or passion, that it was all just "vapor and noise". I really can't understand how moving even more onto the supposed "centre ground" (and thus away even further away from any distinctive stances) is going to remedy that problem.

Edited June 19, 201510 yr by Danny

You conflate the centre ground with not having a distinctive stance far too much - if you do it badly, then of course you can look indistinctive (cf. the Lib Dems). But if you're dreadful you can make just about any position look indistinctive - just as Ed Miliband managed somehow to be so dreadful he managed to make a platform involving the most radical statist manifesto we'd had in forty years look indistinctive. Just as Yvette Cooper has one of the more radical positions in the race so far of introducing universal childcare but is nonetheless coming off incredibly indistinctive.

 

But that's the main thing - I don't want someone who does it badly. Blair's raison d'etre was fighting on the centre ground, and he certainly wasn't indistinctive. Kendall's coming off anything but indistinctive in this race, and she's clever enough to know exactly how to not come off indistinctive and which ammo to use against the Tories if she wins.

You conflate the centre ground with not having a distinctive stance far too much - if you do it badly, then of course you can look indistinctive (cf. the Lib Dems). But if you're dreadful you can make just about any position look indistinctive - just as Ed Miliband managed somehow to be so dreadful he managed to make a platform involving the most radical statist manifesto we'd had in forty years look indistinctive. Just as Yvette Cooper has one of the more radical positions in the race so far of introducing universal childcare but is nonetheless coming off incredibly indistinctive.

 

But that's the main thing - I don't want someone who does it badly. Blair's raison d'etre was fighting on the centre ground, and he certainly wasn't indistinctive. Kendall's coming off anything but indistinctive in this race, and she's clever enough to know exactly how to not come off indistinctive and which ammo to use against the Tories if she wins.

 

Eh? She very much is, as shown by the fact that audience were singularly unimpressed by her and the rest of the candidates. She doesn't seem to have any convictions that drive her at all.

 

You can only get away with an indistinct policy stance if you have the kind of magnetic political skills that Blair had. Without those skills to distract people, they're going to notice how what you're saying is just "vapour and noise". Do you really think Kendall has those Blair-like skills?

Edited June 19, 201510 yr by Danny

Haha I should have known Qass was a Blairite and Danny was a more leftist from your constant debates on here. Saw a Daily Telegraph editorial slabbering and generally being patronising about people with leftist views which make me kind of wish Corbyn would win!

Eh? She very much is, as shown by the fact that audience were singularly unimpressed by her and the rest of the candidates. She doesn't seem to have any convictions that drive her at all.

 

You can only get away with an indistinct policy stance if you have the kind of magnetic political skills that Blair had. Without those skills to distract people, they're going to notice how what you're saying is just "vapour and noise". Do you really think Kendall has those Blair-like skills?

I assumed that Kendall by now would have started to really carve out her own path in the contest which would make her appear distinctive outside of the Guardian/New Statesman articles fawning over how she likes Dr. Dre. She doesn't seem to have done that yet, which makes me less convinced that she'd do it as leader. It also makes her less likely to get there, so win-win I suppose.

 

I'm still flip-flopping between Cooper and Burnham. Dead set on Creasy for Deputy since she could work with either and has a more nuanced idea of what campaigning evolves.

politicians shouldn't mention their music tastes, cos, you know, they Forgot About Dre....

 

ouch.

Stella Creasy is the candidate who has the indiest taste in music, given that she wrote the sleeve notes to the reissue of an album by The Wedding Present.