Labour Party Leadership Election, 2010

[RFK/JFKfan 11]

Now that Gordon Brown has announced his resignation, i've decided to start this thread. Although this would obviously be a British scenario, i think it would be easier, and possibly more realistic, if this scenario was created for P4E8, using the fictional 2010 UK Presidential Election scenario as a template.

Possible candidates:

David Milband (in fact, i think he's going to announce his candidacy shortly)

Ed Milband

Harriet Harman

Alan Johnson

Ed Balls

Jack Straw

Andy Burnham

Alistair Darling

Jon Cruddas

John McDonnell

Of course, they may be others, and probably not all of the above people mentioned will run.

[EGaffney 17]

Your top candidates are Miliband D, Balls, Miliband E, Cruddas. The rest are unlikely.

[Treasurer 28]

Darling has confirmed he is not standing. Not sure about the rest.

[EGaffney 17]

Cruddas has just released a public statement about the next government that strongly suggests he is standing as the candidate of the unions/left.

[normanwisdomii 1]

Ed is standing says the Daily Mirror, might p*ss off his bro. Balls will have the Brown-ite vote locked up. Purnell?

[mahaadoxyz 9]

Harman not running, I hear.

[normanwisdomii 1]

Will you be using the electoral vote system (OMOV) that Labour have or a simple 650 seat contest?

Additionally you should be able to turn candidates off as not all of them will stand.

[Treasurer 28]

Johnson isn't running either. Perhaps have him included in the scenario, but turned off by default.

[dr abc 9]

I would make it very heavily reliant on endorsements rather than actual campaigning (footsoldiers, barnstorming and adverts)

Endorsers representing:

-MP associations (can't remember any names: the equivalent of Bow Group, Conservative Way Forward, Cornerstone etc)... Socialist Campaign Group?

-Think tanks (Compass, Fabians, Demos whatever else)

-Trade unions evidently

-rather than newspapers, individual journalist (Polly Toynbee), and maybe some blogs like that crappy one run by that cabinet minister's son, and the guy who writes the Mirror leader columns

-other pressure groups not necessarily Labour, single issue groups like electoral reform ones, charter88, green groups, animal rights etc

-key Labour figures (Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, um?)... Mandelson?

And these would be very high in momentum given, and in foot soldiers produced. I would not give any candidate PIP's (reduce their effectivness to near zero) because they computer doesn't know how to use them.

Other thoughts:

You don't need a geographic map either.

Instead of a map, have a sort of diagram.

Three different regions perhaps, to represent the different voting blocs involved. Split the endorsers between them.

As ridings have individual MPs and Trade unions, and in the ordinary membership 'region' have Glasgow, Tyneside, Merseyside, London etc as ridings, representing the inclination of Labour party members in differing parts of the country... pick ridings so they are even in terms of membership distribution influence/power. There is no point having say Cornwall or Sussex have the same weight as East Yorkshire (if any weight at all) and, London ridings could be split into Islington, Camden, Lewisham etc.

You know actually I would not do it in PM4E, I would do it in P4E+P which is much simpler and will have primaries (=hustings?) endorsement/withdrawal mechanics already. It also allows you to use block voting and Proportional Representation with thresholds, and you can set Electoral Votes without any regard to population.

====

edit: Oh sorry, didn't read I see that's what you're doing.

[dr abc 9]

For candidates I'd put as many in as possible, even those with 50/1 odds can (And have) made a different through endorsement/withdrawal.

For the left, Cruddas and McDonnell

Harriet Harman

Jack Straw

Peter Hain

John McFall

Hillary Benn

should definitely be in

Douglas Alexander, Alan Johnson, Darling perhaps - you might be able to force them to withdraw/endorse by event (don't know) at a specified date, meaning start the actual election campaign say May 10th and Johnson endorses right away

[normanwisdomii 1]

David Miliband

Ed Miliband

Ed Balls

The younger (and more likely) candidates.

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown could endorse and Alan Johnson already appears to be David Miliband's 'running mate'.

In reality each candidate will need the backing of 33 MP's to continue their campaign. This could be our primary.

Otherwise I totally agree with dr abc

Oooo and Put James Purnell in. He's like my favourite Labour dude.

[normanwisdomii 1]

e

[RFK/JFKfan 11]

How's Progress

I've added pretty much all of the needed candidates and endorsers. I'm using the map from the "Win Favour with Labour" scenario, but i haven't really figured out what to call each region. I was thinking maybe "Socialist voters", "Third-Way voters", "Unions". Any other ideas?

[normanwisdomii 1]

An article in the Observer this morning showed Ed Balls had interestingly moved to the Centre-Right on Immigration, criticising New Labour's previous policies.

The Daily Mirror is a huge endorser too, almost every member and Trade unionist reads it in Britain. It's twice as important as the Sun or Daily Mail for this election.

Don't forget MEP's too (European Labour). They tend to be slightly more left wing than MP's.

It'll be very interesting anyway

[thetrotsky 3]

No way I'm backing John McDonnell in the Labour leadership contest. It's time Labour refound it's constitutional identity.

[Kauai 0]

If only there was a Social Democrat/True Progressive. It seems as though everyone is either Far-Left or Third Way.

[normanwisdomii 1]

b

[Kauai 0]

Third way is kind of social democratic

Third Way is neoliberalism at it's best.

[normanwisdomii 1]

Blair sort of based his ideology (in the early days at least) around Clinton's ideas..... fair enough on neo-liberalism. The problem with finding credible Social Democrats in the party is that in the 80's most of them flocked to the SDP (fools) who became the Lib Dems... Charles Kennedy and Roy Jenkins are the last true SDP I reckon.

[normanwisdomii 1]

On a more serious note Ed Miliband is launching his Living Wage campaign... aligning himself evermore as the more left wing mainstream candidate.

[EGaffney 17]

What about Jim Garner?

http://jim4leader.org.uk/

[normanwisdomii 1]

"James Garner was born in Luxton. He attended St Monica’s Catholic Primary School for Recovering Alcoholics and went onto attend St Jude Hope of the Hopeless RC High School, both in Wetfield. Before becoming an MP, Jim was the elected General Secretary for NUBFW (National Union for Brine Factory Workers). He joined the Labour Party on his 14th birthday."

From his own 'about me' page. Hilarious! Put him in!

[Treasurer 28]

John McDonnell steps downs to allow the Diane Abbott to get enough nominations.

The Jim Garner videos are brilliant btw. Thanks for the link.

[thetrotsky 3]

Well now we have our official candidates and John McDonnell has withdrawn Ill be giving my full support to Diane Abbott. Not my first choiche but my favourite out of this bunch. She has little chance of victory, but hopefully her campaign will help rebuild the left in the Labour party. If she was made leader I would gladly join the labour party.

[normanwisdomii 1]

McDonnell is such a better lefty candidate, the fact she went to school with Portillo should destroy her chances. How about this?

Dianne Abbot (far left/ left)

Ed Miliband (centre left)

Andy Burnham (???????)

David Miliband (centre right)

Ed Balls (right)

Note: only a suggestion. I have put them to the left and right of the party centre not the national centre.