Yvette cooper

Oh dear. Is the Labour leadership campaign beginning to get too much for the Burnham camp? After the Guardian announced last night that they would be endorsing Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham’s campaign manager Michael Dugher was quick to tweet a link to the Guardian‘s 2010 endorsement of Nick Clegg. BREAKING NEWS (2010): @guardian backs Nick Clegg http://t.co/59bJFzIX2A — Michael Dugher (@MichaelDugher) August 13, 2015 As this endorsement didn’t work out too well for the Liberal Democrats, some users took this to be a thinly veiled dig by Dugher — who previously worked closely with Labour spin doctor Damian McBride under Gordon Brown — to suggest that the paper’s endorsement is not worth much.

Although much has been made of Andy Burnham’s admission in an interview with GQ that he owns an Armani suit, perhaps the most embarrassing revelation lies further down. When asked for the Gentlemen’s Quarterley’s September issue who he would like to lead the Labour party if he doesn’t win the leadership election, Burnham plays it safe and chooses a politician who is not even running for the coveted position: ‘Alan Johnson is somebody that I think has that authentic Labour voice that the public can relate to, and somebody who embodies aspiration in a good way.’ Pity then that Johnson came out in support of his rival Yvette Cooper just two

Although the Milifandom wasn’t enough to lead Ed Miliband to victory at the polls, the cult movement did at least bring the former Labour leader’s lagging campaign some momentum in the final weeks of the election campaign. So perhaps it’s little surprise that the new Labour leadership hopefuls have been courting Milifandom founder Abby Tomlinson in a bid to win her endorsement ahead of the vote. After meeting with each contender, Tomlinson  has announced that she is backing Andy Burnham for leader. She says that she will give her second preference to Jeremy Corbyn — who has won the most union endorsements as well as CLP endorsements. Writing a comment piece in the

After May’s general election, both Labour and the Lib Dems needed a new leader, but the contrast between their leadership elections could not be starker. Labour is in the midst of a full-blown civil war. To outsiders, it appears to be a party in total meltdown, as veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn continues to poll ahead of his more mainstream rivals. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems MPs are under new leadership, after the bloodless ascension of Tim Farron, who beat rival Norman Lamb in a relatively good-natured contest. It would be easy to dismiss the leader of eight MPs as insignificant, but it matters profoundly to Lib Dem members who want to

Jeremy Corbyn is still on track to be the next Labour leader, according to leaked private polling. Tomorrow’s Daily Mirror reports that this poll puts Corbyn on 42 per cent of the first preference votes, with Yvette Cooper comes in second place on 22.6 per cent, Andy Burnham on 20 and Liz Kendall on 14. Until now, Burnham’s campaign has maintained their man is the only one who could beat Corbyn after the votes have been redistributed. But the Mirror reports that once Kendall has been knocked out and her second preferences sent to other candidates, it is a dead heat with Corbyn on 51 per cent and Cooper on 49 per cent —

Which factions have the most influence in the Labour leadership and deputy leadership contest? The biggest split in the party is between the pressure group Progress and those with links to trade unions. Their respective outlooks are often perceived as being mutually exclusive, and the way the leadership contest is shaping up seems to suggest that this is true. Here is how the party breaks down between those two political poles, both in the 2010 contest and the one taking place currently. Around 80 of the 232 MPs in the Parliamentary Labour Party have taken part in Progress events over the last five years according to its website. Such MPs

Is Liz Kendall about to quit the Labour leadership race? The Times reports comments from Labour sources who say Kendall’s time is up — given her poor showing in the recent YouGov poll and CLP nominations — and she should drop out for the good of the party. One MP told the paper ‘it may have to be Liz saying, “Look, I’m not going to win”‘. Another senior Labour figure said ‘there’s quite a bit of private pressure building up on Liz.’ These Labour figures do not appear to understand how the party leader is elected. The preferential Alternative Vote system means that candidates will be knocked one by one out until someone has

The YouGov survey might be ‘just one poll’ in a notoriously tricky race to predict, but it has sent shockwaves throughout the Labour party. Tristram Hunt and Tony Blair have been activated to plead with the party to stick to the centre ground, while the other leadership camps are taking differing views on what it means. Andy Burnham’s campaign do not seems too worried and thinks it spells trouble for Yvette Cooper. A source in the Burnham camp says: ‘It shows that Yvette is dead in the water, it’s a two horse race and she’s gone. We are ahead with members, just, and we’ll continue to fight for every vote. On the Jeremy Corbyn threat, Team

One in five members of the Parliamentary Labour Party voted against the party whip last night. Although the second reading of the government’s Welfare Bill passed, it shows that the party is divided. I’ve been through the list of the 48 rebels are there are two trends amongst the rebels: many nominated Jeremy Corbyn for leader and the majority entered Parliament in the last few years. In the leadership contest, 18 of the rebels backed Corbyn for leader, compared to 15 for Andy Burnham, nine for Yvette Cooper and just one Liz Kendall supporter. Five of the rebels didn’t back anyone. Burnham is clearly spooked by this, judging by a

The four Labour leadership contenders took part in another televised hustings today, this time chaired by Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics. With just over 50 days left of this contest, the candidates are now more comfortable in each other’s company and seem much happier to attack each other. Although no one spectacularly won or failed, a few moments did provide some insight into the current state of the race. Here are five key points from today’s hustings. 1. Corbyn is comfortable running as the far left candidate. The rise of Corbynmania has overlooked that he has no frontbench experience and little idea of how to do serious politics. His appearance on the Sunday

The Labour welfare rebellion advances further, with Helen Goodman tabling a ‘reasoned amendment’ to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. She says she has the support of 40 Labour MPs for the amendment, which reads as follows: ‘That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, notwithstanding its potentially useful provisions on apprenticeships, because the Bill would have the effect of ignoring the plight of children in low income working households, removing the concept of child poverty from the statute book, increasing the number of children, especially those from large families, living in poverty, worsening work incentives for people whose incomes are below

Labour is in an almighty mess at the moment. Those involved in the leadership campaigns are surprised by how the mood in the party has changed from quite open acceptance of a need to change in the days after the election defeat to angry dissent when change is suggested, as evidenced by the reaction to Harriet Harman’s welfare policies this week. The party isn’t quite having a row about what it should stand for at the next election, preferring instead to argue about how it does opposition for the next eight weeks, most of which are in Parliamentary recess. Here are the various options for what Labour does, both in

Throughout his career, Andy Burnham has been keen to point out that he is not one of the ‘metropolitan elite’. The Labour leadership hopeful says that ‘for too long there has been a sense of a metropolitan elite at the top of the Labour party’. So Mr S was curious to learn the venue for a talk he is giving next week. Burnham will appear at the Soho House private members’ club on Tuesday to read ‘a short story about equality and justice’. While Steerpike is sure Burnham’s words will be sincere, he worries that the venue – which is popular with Hugh Grant, Madonna and Kirsty Young – may distract from the message. To

How, as a seasoned politician, might you decide who to back in the party’s leadership contest? It might be that you’re swayed by the ministerial experience of one candidate, or perhaps the fierce commitment of another candidate to a policy that you hold very dear. Perhaps it’s because you’re from the same faction in the party, because you’ve been friends for years, or maybe it’s because, as a result of various twists of good fortune and circumstances not entirely under their control, they have children. Apparently, that last is the primary reason that Helen Goodman, a Labour MP who served as a minister when her party was in government, selected