Any Labour members care to start a discussion regarding the leadership election?

Longfingernails, they do use a transferable eliminating ballot which is definitely preferable to FPTP. As with any voting system if enough votes get split between two candidates there is a real possibility of a third person getting in instead. Sorry, am not at my most coherent either just before bed or first thing in the morning. Will gather my thoughts today and try to explain myself better later!

Felinehappy, sadly I agree with you. At the moment I am trying to decide how to vote to ensure that the people who I consider the worst don't win. Now is the time for Labour, as you say, to return to its core values and my gut feeling is that only Ed Milliband or Diane Abbott actually have any belief in those values. Should one of the others get in, for me that will be the end of the Labour Party I support.

Personally I am fed up of being told that you can't have so and so because the country wouldn't support them or they wouldn't win the next election. I know I am oversimplifying but Tony Blair was great at getting disillusioned Tories but I feel he alienated a lot of his core supporters. The party needs to get its house in order before it looks to lead the country. I always wanted a Tony Benn/Ken Livingstone type leader but there you go!

Thanks for starting this discussion, it makes really interesting reading. I am so unsure which candidate to vote for. None of the candidates really stand out and grab me. Labour need to return to its core values and not alienate too much of the country. I'm not sure if any of the candidates offer what I'm looking for. The head v heart observation gives me something to think about.

Malkuth I think you are getting the voting system wrong (though I am not a Labour member, and may be wrong).

If you put Diane Abbott as your first choice and she is knocked out early on, then your second choice will count. If your second choice gets knocked out, then your third choice will count. And so on, until one candidate has 50% of the vote.

I don't think voting Diane Abbott can "let David Miliband in" though I might be wrong. It isn't a FPTP election.

And actually I think Diane Abbott might win if people went with their hearts. Sadly most of the people I know are convinced that she can't win because of the media and rights portrayal of her so will probably vote for someone else, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My fear is that, by voting for her, I will be allowing David Milliband to win, and that will further alienate a huge swathe of the traditional labour vote who are fed up with New Labour/Blairism and want a return to a semblance of socialism.

My view is that now is the time to go with the heart. The last few years all seem to have been about the head and look where that has got us.

yes I think he will be the winner

Oh, and David Miliband always offered some action as well, how he would hope to achieve certain outcomes.

Seeing them in real life is very different from what I thought about them based on their media image.

Diane Abbott got biggest appaluses and laughs by a mile. She is great fun and a great ambassador for the cause, but she is no leader IMHO.
I did not think Ed Balls would be electable.
Ed Miliband I really like, but for me he only came third in this debate, as he never offered any action, just values. Values are important BTW, but we need to know a bit more than that.
Andy Burnham is fab. I like his voice, accent and hair, etc. He is also very brave talking about cuts in the NHS. But similarly to Diane his experience seems very limited. (That is how it came across anyway.) If he had slightly more experience, I would definitely vote for him.
David Miliband was so well prepared and relaxed, and sort of ready, that for me he is the future leader. I have many issues with him, but I was just amazed how he could talk about any subject quoting facts and figures with such ease. He could also rally people. I am converted.
Unfortunately though his campaign is a little bit too professional for this particular Labour stronghold. I think people were shocked by all the leaflets, canvassing, etc. all coming just from him. My view would be that he is serious about it and wants the job, which is fine by me.

I might still change my mind though.

what have you decided and why?

Back from Newcastle Leadership Hustings. I finally managed to make up my mind.

How can anyone describe Dianne Abbot as honorable i just don't get it . She is all mouth and does not put her principles into action . Yes i am talking about the private school issue.As someone on the OMG thread pointed out she comes into the i am alright jack school of thought !

Highlander See you tomoroow at the GNM [waving]

Interesting - though that poll is unscientific. Actually I don't believe that the LabourList readership is a good reflection of the broader Labour membership.

I suspect most people who write for it are middle class Guardian reading lefties rather than working class trade union members.

Prolesworth Do you have links? Or is it just word of mouth?

One place where Ed Miliband could really clean up is in the second and third preferences. I can't see David Miliband getting huge numbers of transfers - he is a bit too polarising. There is a very definite anti-David movement, whereas there is no comparable anti-Ed movement.

David Miliband has won the endorsement of a trade union, though a pretty insignificant one: the USDAW.

That is quite surprising to me - I thought that Ed Balls and Ed Miliband would sew up the union vote between them.

Obviously this is just the union leaders and the ballot is secret - but presumably the union leaders still have quite a lot of sway?

Surely David Miliband is definitely going to win now?

I've been invited to a meet EM thing in Newcastle tonight (can't make it sadly; there's free beer!!) but going to hustings tomorrow.

have no time to do proper research so I'm annoyed at myself.

Would like to ask how the modern centr-right party is going to keep in touch with, and give a voice to, the working class grassroots. Suspect they will fob me off with constitency surgeries

LisaT06 It is not one of the Lefties threads.

I looked through many many Blair Vs Hague PMQ sessions and Paliamentary sessions and Hague was outclassed at every step. Devoid of humour he truly is a laughing stock.

My moneys on David Milliband personally.

LongFingerNails your a through and through CONservative. It shows terribly.

Blair had ten times the charisma and flair of Hague. Hague was consistently boring with that drone like voice of his. The man is and always will be a complete buffoon. He is inept, inadequate and has no political savvy whatsoever. He sounds like a dial tone with a frog stuck playing over the top of it.
You must really really have some bloody big blinkers on if you think Hague is any kind of decent politician.

not sure. But the most memorable leadership comments seem to be from Diane. Is it only the Labourati that want the best for their children? Will Labour voters swallow this on top of everything else that they have had to swallow? Is this yet another case of one rule for the Central Committee and one rule for the rest of us?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1288358/Diane-Abbott-plays-race-card-excuse-decision-send-son-priva te-school.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Annoyingly, I haven't been able to follow the news as closely today as I would normally.

What has been the response of the leadership contenders to the Budget, and is there anything in their responses which distinguishes them from each other?

Surely this is their first big chance to do something really memorable?