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

I will leave the country if Dianna Abbot gets it.

I am fairly certain that she wont but i am angry that she has even been put forward tbh

OK - point taken.

More constructively, here is a precis of yesterday's hustings at Young Labour - though I am generally suspicious of opinions of candidates being relayed almost as facts.

www.labourlist.org/youth-hustings-live-blog-mark-ferguson

I would prefer to watch for myself, but can't. Apparently the hustings were streamed live online but I can't find a replay of the video.

"Ed Miliband failed in his Climate Change portfolio, and he failed even harder with the Labour manifesto." per longfingernails....since when failing on manifesto stopped you from becoming party leader...reference Dave Cameron!

Forget Campbell. Of Blair, Thatcher herself said:

"I see a lot of socialism behind their front bench, but not in Mr Blair. I think he genuinely has moved."

"As if Labour members are going to take on board what people who think that Thatcher was Great think."

Campbell's diary confirms what many of us knew all along about Tory Blair :

AUGUST 30, 2000: TB said it was important I understood why parts of Thatcherism were right. TB said [to his advisers]: ?What gives me real edge is that I?m not as Labour as you lot.? I pointed out that was a rather discomfiting observation. He said it was true.

LadyBlaBla

I love the intrigue and drama of politics... and it is very important for the country, not to mention the Tory party and the coalition, who the next Labour leader is.

I have contributed loads of links and articles about the selection - and mainly from the Guardian, New Statesman and Labour blogs, not exactly the Spectator...

Anyway, my point still stands.

Andy Burnham at least handled swine flu OK. He wasted colossal sums of money in the process, but being Labour, that is probably seen as a good thing.

Ed Balls, for all his awfulness, did make lots of changes at Education.

Mili-D was a terrible Foreign Secretary, but despite that, still managed some things - like negotiating a hostage release or two.

What exactly has Mili-E done during his time as a minister?

Still unsure about why all the tory girls are taking over this thread? As if Labour members are going to take on board what people who think that Thatcher was Great think.

Well, he's quite hot, longfingernails - that's an accomplishment!

Ed Miliband failed in his Climate Change portfolio, and he failed even harder with the Labour manifesto.

He now claims he wouldn't have voted for the Iraq War because he votes his conscience - but spearheaded the Labour project for a third runway at Heathrow despite not believing in it.

Has he actually ever accomplished anything??

BecauseImWorthIt - yes ED M has it all .

do you mean David Miliband or Pascoe-Watson? Both seem to still be New Labourites. The links between Murdoch and New Labour were quite deep.

I suppose it makes sense as he is the most right-wing of the candidates

George Pascoe-Watson, former political editor of the Sun, and champion of Tony Blair, who now works for a PR agency set up by one of Blair's spin doctors, was on Any Questions and said that he would prefer Blair, but otherwise the best of the Labour leadership candidates is David Miliband. It is interesting that the right and the media are on the side of David Miliband.

"the socialists have always deceived the public on civil liberties. Their top leadership has never been for them, they have always been authoritarian."

Totally agree.

I thought this was for labour party members to discuss?

I thought Diane Abbott was dreadful last night on Newsnight. I always liked her on that Anderew Neil programme but she looked very uncomfortable and unsure last night with Paxman taking it very easy on her.

I think that Ed Balls will be seen as tainted by Brown. Diane Abbot is seen as a media tart. It will be a Miliband, most probably David.

longfingernails, the Americanisation of our entire culture is seemingly inevitable, I fear.

I agree with your analysis but it almost makes me nostalgic for Thatcher's era - at least you had conviction politicians who actually believed what they espoused. I find few things as disspiriting politically as the realisation that very few politicans seem keen to actually believe in anything or to tell is as it is, for fear of scaring the electorate. And worse, I think a large part of that is the electorate's fault, for not wanting to hear the unpalatable truth. Ultimately we really do get the politicians we deserve.

Prolesworth, I think it's a fair point about the "homogeneity of the main parties" but I'm not sure that the lengths that had to in effect be 'artificially' gone to in order to ensure a female candidate got onto the ballot paper were healthy. Ideally the best candidates should emerge - and should include people of both sexes - without having to effectively patronise Diane Abbott. But the barriers to more female involvement in politics at a high level is a different debate for another day.

As for "the assumption that only a very narrow set of centre-right policies appeal to the electorate" I'd hope that a party standing on a centre-left platform could realistically achieve power, but past election results do suggest to me that anything further to the left has pretty much no chance, rightly or wrongly. And standing on that basis might be ideologically sound to those involved, but it's a complete waste of time in terms of any kind of pragmatic or practical politics and wanting seriously to improve people's lives.

noyoucant Sorry but further Americanisation of our politics is inevitable. There is no escape.

And in a society where there are fewer "natural" communities than ever before, values are less relevant though still crucial.

Media skills will become much, much more important - even more so than now. That alone is why Ed Balls will never get close.