Wes Streeting has resigned, although it is not yet clear that he has the 80 other MPs necessary to launch his leadership bid.
One must not forget that the Labour Party is not the Conservative Party. There is more loyalty to the leader and some regard this as an attempt to force an early general election. My first vote will go to Starmer.
Streeting is none too popular with Labour members who tend to be more to the left. Many see him as a Blairite retread and Tory lite. However, he is competent and a good communicator.
'King of the North' Andy Burnham needs to find a seat and win it and the member for Manchester Rushholme has denied reports that he intends to stand down. Burnham is supposedly the most popular with the electorate although in fact the modal category is 'don't know'. He is the least popular candidate with the bond markets who certainly have a vote, possibly a veto,
There are still some doubts about whether Angela Rayner is prime ministerial material and it may be that Ed Miliband will carry the soft left banner, although he would probably be satisfied with becoming chancellor. He did lose a general election in 2015.
Yvette Cooper seems to be never mentioned, although she is on today's Private Eye cover. Perhaps being a 'safe pair of hands' is not enough.
Dark horse and Everest conqueror Al Carns has a long essay in the New Statesman. It has a coherent narrative (security) but seems to lack specific proposals. Perhaps he is just bidding for a Cabinet seat,
The contest is bad for effective government, bad for the economy and bad for the Labour Party, but that is the way things have gone since the Brexit referendum.
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