The Self-Defeat of Political Tokenism

Diane Abbott must face serious questions about the seriousness of her candidacy

At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, it must be noted that defeated Labour Party leadership candidate Diane Abbott was a token candidate.

Not a token black candidate (although she was keen to invoke race when she declared Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy PM Nick Clegg to be "posh white boys"). Rather, she was a token female candidate.

Looking back on the Labour leadership campaign, it's hard to view her otherwise. She was never a serious contender. She very seldom brought anything of interest to the table.

In fact, the only attention-worthy statements from Abbott during the entire campaign were far-from-Earth-shattering speculation on the role of major donors on the leadership campaign, and questions about the legality of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In other words, Abbott strove to be little more than a standard left-wing candidate.

There seemed to be little compelling reason for her candidacy. Her campaign's sole boost came when disgraced candidate John McDonnell -- who obliterated his own slender chances at the leadership by musing about a desire to assassinate Margaret Thatcher while she was Prime Minister of Britain -- withdrew from the contest and threw his support behind her.

His reasoning? The Labour leadership contest needed a female candidate.

If Abbott being a woman was truly the only reason why electors in the campaign -- consisting of Labour Party members, Labour MPs and members of affiliated groups -- would want to vote for her, Abbot's candidacy was in trouble from the very get-go.

This shouldn't be mistaken for a suggestion that women shouldn't run for the leadership of political parties.

In fact, strong female candidates speak volumes about the strength of a particular political party. That Labour couldn't produce a strong female candidate for leadership does precisely that.

Even Abbott's own constituents declined to support her. Of the electors within her riding of Hackney North-Stoke Newton only 20.55% cast their votes in her favour.

While her candidacy may have been based on the best of intentions -- providing demographic diversity in the Labour leadership contest -- it certainly hasn't met those intentions.

In fact, Abbott's candidacy could be considered to have done a disservice to women in the Labour Party. If Abbott's candidacy -- a waste of time and resources by any account -- is the best the women of the Labour Party could produce, the role of women within the party should be very much a matter of question.

This is how political tokenism -- in the name of feminism, race, or anything else -- defeats itself. The next token candidate should leave such matters to serious contenders.

What Is the Future of Labour's Finances?

Debt-riddled Labour Party refudiates former Deputy Prime Minister

With the British Labour Party's treasury swimming up to its gills in debt, tbe party has made the peculiar move of rejecting a former Deputy Prime Minister.

In doing so, the party also put some distance between itself and the spectre of New Labour.

Lord John Prescott, former Deputy PM under Tony Blair, was defeated for the office of party treasurer by Diana Holland, an official with Britain's Unite union.

Holland seems to share Prescott's dismal view of the party's finances, even if she doesn't phrase it in the same apocalyptic language as Prescott.

Her plan is to right the party's finances on the strength of small donors.

"I will work hard to build a stronger party in all respects, not just financial, and I will make putting us on a sound footing to win the next election my top priority," Holland announced. "I will make recruiting and involving new members a real priority, helping to build a mass membership movement and also helping to secure our finances by maximising small donations from ordinary members and supporters."

Holland was able to defeat Prescott on the strength of the votes coming from affiliated labour unions. Prescott received 60% of the votes from the party members, but only 0.14% of the vote from affiliated unions.

In other words, Holland received nearly 100% of union votes in the race, in addition to 40% of the votes from party members.

Even with the ballot favourably weighted toward party members, the math seems to add up to a near-overwhelming defeat.

Even with Holland's promises to correct the disastrous state of Labour's finances, the question remains as to what the future of Labour's finances will be.

Given the role the union vote played in her election, Diana Holland may have some favours to repay. Whatever effect that will have on Labour's finances remains to be seen.

Ed Miliband Wins By a Hair

Younger Miliband top second choice on Labour ballot

After months of underwhelming campaigning, the British Labour Party has finally named its successor to Gordon Brown.

Ed Miliband accumulated enough second-choice votes on the preferential ballot to edge out his older brother David by less than 1%.

In a rather unambitious victory speech, Miliband pledged to lead his party back to power.

"My aim is to return our party to power," he announced. "This is a tough challenge. It is a long journey. But our party has made the first step in electing a leader from a new generation."

But instead of merely offering knee-jerk reaction to the coalition government of the Tories and Liberal Democrats, Miliband has promised a comparatively collaborative approach to government.

"As well as setting out an alternative when the government gets it wrong, we will support it when it is right," he continued.

Yet at the conclusion of a leadership campaign in which moving beyond Tony Blair's famed New Labour was often a central theme, Miliband more or less promised to re-deliver the magic that created New Labour.

"We have a lot of ground to make up if we are to rebuild the broad coalition of support that swept us to power in 1997," he announced. "We must never again lose touch with the mainstream of our country."

Of course, claiming an eventual margin of victory of scarcely more than 1%, Ed Miliband can hardly claim to represent the mainstream of his own party, let alone of Britain.

However Ed Miliband chooses to approach this detail, he may want to send a thank-you card to Ed Balls.

The ballot-by-ballot breakdown of the preferential vote shows that, until Ed Balls was eliminated, the younger Miliband trailed his older brother David by what eventually turned out to be the margin of victory.

It wasn't until the final ballot that the vote shifted in favour of the younger Miliband.

The intrigue of the preferential ballot is that it allows a candidate to effectively play the role of kingmaker without having to directly endorse another candidate.

Ed Miliband has already offered his brother David the key role of shadow Chancellor. It's certainly fair at this point to wonder what Miliband is prepared to offer Balls.

In the meantime, Britain -- and the rest of the world -- will wait to see what Ed Miliband has in store for his party.

Tony Blair's Deferred War on the Working Class

Labour knew they were spending, borrowing too much

As Labour leadership candidates Andy Burnham and Ed Balls battle over whether or not the Labour party would have embarked on a program of cuts similar to that of the current Tory/Liberal Democrat government, Lord Andrew Turnbull, former head of the British Civil Service, has dropped a bombshell on the debate:

The Labour party was spending too much, and knew it was spending too much. And it knew in 2005.

Lord Turnbull suggests that it was political pressure that convinced Tony Blair and his government to continue spending at a manifestly undisciplined rate, even after it became evident that there was a problem.

"It kind of crept up on us in 2005, 2006, 2007, and we were still expanding public spending at 4.5 per cent a year," he explained. "You might have thought that we should have been giving priority to getting borrowing under better control, putting money aside in the good years - and it didn't happen."

Lord Turnbull's comments reveal Keynesian economics for precisely what they became under Tony Blair: an excuse to spend, even at the expense of the government's ability to battle a recession by expending savings accumulated during strong economic periods.

Lord Turnbull explained it very simply: "Public spending got too big relative to the productive resources of the economy."

"The politics was that we had put an end to boom and bust," he said. But it didn't work that way. The government overspent even during the time of boom, and now succeeding governments have to fix the problem.

All of this complicates matters intensely for the current crop of Labour leadership candidates, looking to replace Blair's successor, Gordon Brown.

Andy Burnham has been tremendously candid about the necessity of cuts under a Labour government.

"Let's get some honesty in this debate," Burnham said. "There would have been significant spending cuts under Labour and there would have been job losses under Labour."

For his own part, Ed Balls seems to think that things would have been magically different under a Labour government.

"I think Labour would have been creating jobs this year," Balls insisted. "At a time when the economy is slowing down, we should be building houses, not cutting them, building schools, not cutting them."

This of course begs the question of where the money would have come from. But Balls seems to think that he has the answer... or at least something he can easily pass off as the answer.

"The banks should be paying the price of the crisis, not people up and down this country," Balls insisted.

Of course, it shouldn't be the banks that pay the price for the excessively poor fiscal policy of the Blair and Brown governments. One way or the other, under one government or another, the British government will have to pay the price for that.

Unfortunately, it's inevitable that when the government pays, the citizens will pay as well.

Many among Britain's left have gleefully seized upon the looming cuts by the David Cameron government of waging class warfare against the middle and working classes.

But even as Tony Blair spent the government of Great Britain deeper and deeper into debt, he had to have known that a fiscal day of recknoning was coming. Tony Blair had to have known that the middle and working classes would be hit hardest by that reckoning than anyone else -- including himself.

If class warfare is being waged against the working and middle classes at all, it's Tony Blair's defferred class warfare.

Miliband: Labour Needs to Do Better Politics

David Miliband syas Labour needs to abandon crude politics

As the Labour leadership race enters its final leg before ballotting begins on September 1, many of the candidates have declared that Labour must do politics differently if it is to rebuild.

For Miliband, this means going back to the party's principles, and to stop pandering to specific portions of the British electorate.

Miliband argues that Labour's approach to politics had become ill-advised from its very get-go, and that parties that base their politics on polls and demographics deserve to lose.

"When your starting point is polling numbers, rather than principle and policy you end up with transparent positioning like 'British jobs for British workers'," Miliband explains.

Rather, Miliband insists that Labour must focus on appealing to Britons as a whole.

"Labour lost in 2010 because its appeal collapsed across social classes," he continues. "And the political coalition that in 1997 united all shades of opposition to the Conservatives -- centre and centre-Left -- broke down."

Miliband blames an ideologically insular approach to politics, one that frequently either targetted the interests of Britain's middle class, or cast aspersions on their ambitions and aspirations.

Labour had fooled itself into believing that it didn't need the middle class. In Miliband's mind, this is what cost the party the election.

"You just can't craft an election majority out of a minority," Miliband says. "It is dangerous to pretend that we don't need the middle classes."

That means that Labour needs to permanently abandon any pretenses of class warfare, such as the kind that former leader Gordon Brown tried to wage during the lead up to the 2010 election.

It means that comments such as those by fellow candidate Diane Abbott -- who declared Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to be "posh white boys" -- must also be abandoned in future.

David Miliband has promised that Labour will do politics differently. He's declared the need for Labour to do politics better.

If he's elected leader, it will be up to him to deliver on both.

Diane Abbott Blows Smoke on War in Afghanistan

Abbott raises question, offers no answer

As the Labour Party prepares vote for its next leader, longshot Diane Abbott has set about her last-ditch effort to stem the tide away from a choice between the Miliband brothers:

She's courting the soft-peacenik vote.

Abbott admitted that if there was a war for Britain to fight, she may commit British forces to it -- provided that it's a legal war. Abbott merely can't seem to find any currently ongoing that she deems to be legal.

"If it was a legal war I might do," she explained. "The problem with the Iraq War, it was widely judged to be illegal."

Moreover, Abbott questions the legality of thw war in Afghanistan.

"It might have been legal, a legal invasion, in the very first place, but 10 years on, where is the legality for it?" Abbott asked.

Simple: NATO's mission in Afghanistan was mandated by the United Nations. The United Nations has not withdrawn its mandate, nor did it ever attach an expiry date for that mandate.

None of the conditions affecting the legality of the war have changed.

In fact, the most elaborate explanation of Abbott's sentiments is that she regards the war to be counter-productive.

"I think what is perceived as a western occupation of Afghanistan is becoming counter-productive," Abbott mused.

Moreover, Abbott believes she has the answer: UN Peacekeeping.

"I think there should be a phased withdrawal," Abbott asserted. "We should give way to a UN peacekeeping force, ideally led by troops from an Islamic nation. But you will not win, you will not bring stability to the region with a war."

THe problem for Abbott is that a handover of Afghanistan from NATO combat forces to UN peacekeepers is that there is currently little peace to keep. But a handover to UN peacekeepers wouldn't merely require a pace: it would require a just peace.

The Taliban is extremely unlikely to agree to a just peace accord -- particularly not one hastily-negotiated.

Moreover, the Taliban is not interested in negotiating: they merely want to re-take power.

Some of the other insurgent groups fighting NATO forces -- just as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hisb-i-Islami could be negotiated with. But the historical experience negotiating with Hekmatyar -- in which Hekmatyar stabs his earstwhile-allies in the back in order to seize more power -- tells any informed individual that you simply do not bother.

At the end of the day, however, Abbott is clearly just blowing smoke. She asks the question about the legality of the war in Afghanistan, but attempts to offer no substantive answer.

Diane Abbott is merely fishing for votes among the soft-peacenik crowd. If this crowd falls for her empty platitudes and give her their vote, then they and Abbott deserve each other.

The Hard Turn of Labour's Class Warfare

Abbott: New Labour "contaminated" by big money

As the Labour leadership campaign creeps closer and closer to balloting, candidate Diane Abbott is taking a new approach to her leadership bid:

Class warfare.

Some may recall that, as the 2010 general election approached, then-Labour leader (and then-Prime Minister) Gordon Brown tried to stir up class warfare sentiments when he targetted Tory leader David Cameron over his education.

Abbott has evidently decided to adopt the same tactic. The difference is that she's directing it within her own party, as opposed at a partisan opponent.

Her principle complaint is that some of her competitors have received far more campaign donations than she has. She declares this to be evidence that New Labour was "pretty much contaminated".

"It is odd that David Miliband has £400,000 and I have £5,000," Abbott complains. "He's got the big Blairite money and the big Blairite backers."

It's the kind of move that must lead one to question how serious Abbott is about her leadership bid.

After all, to be seen attempting to divide Britons at large against one another based on wealth is one thing. To be doing it within her own party is another entirely.

After all, election campaigns cannot be contested without money. Under Abbott's best-case scenario, in which wealth is a pervasive enough wedge issue to help her win the Labour leadership, she risks dividing the party membership against those most likely to donate to contest the next election.

The dangers of this stategy speaks for itself: a Labour Party under Diane Abbott's leadership isn't likely to progress any closer to power in a future election, but is likely to instead find itself further away.

Moreover, if Labour rewards Abbott's petty class warfare, it will deserve to be.

Elitism... It's What's For Dinner

Andy Burnham obsessed with New Labour "elitism"

When Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham suggested that the leadership of the Labour Party was too elitist under Tony Blair, he must have been satisfied with the results.

After all, that was June. Now it's August, on the verge of Labour members voting on their new leader, and Burnham is lobbing accusations of elitism again -- this time at David and Ed Miliband.

The Miliband brothers, he alleges, are both the result of the Labour party recruiting from "the elite".

As such, Burnham charges that the Miliband brothers -- one of whom will likely assume the party leadership -- represent the worst of the old party leadership.

"At its worst, it was self-indulgent, arrogant, elitist, Londoncentric and all of that has to change," Burnham contends. "It looked hollow and rootless at times."

Who is the antidote to Labour party elitism? Why, Burnham proclaims that it's none other than himself.

"I didn't have well-connected parents," he declares. "People are looking for politicians who have real life experience."

Whether or not Andy Burnham was born into any power elite establishment, however, is irrelevant. While Labour was in government under Gordon Brown, Burnham served in a pair of Minister of State roles -- for health and sport -- as well as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

In other words, Burnham is among the elite MPs of his party.

So while Burnham can pledge that he will be an anti-establishment candidate, this is repeatedly undermined by the detail that he, himself, is a member of the establishment within his own party.

He could certainly pledge to be less elitist -- as the Miliband brothers themselves have done -- but to be pretend that he isn't himself now a part of the elite defies credulity.

Ed Miliband: The All-Or-Nothing Labour Leader

Younger Miliband monkeywrenches future coalitions in advance

With some recent comments concerning Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, Labour leadership candidate Ed Miliband has staked out some key real estate in the Labour leadership conest.

He's defined himself as the all-or-nothing candidate.

Miliband has accused Clegg of being a sell-out and a "crypto-Tory".

"He has totally sold out to the Tories - he's revealed himself to be a crypto-Tory." Miliband insisted.

Some may recall that the Conservative Party of Britain had campaigned on up to six billion pounds of budget cuts in their first budget. Many believed that the coalition with the Lib Dems would result in this number being reduced -- something that clearly has not been the case.

Miliband attributes this to a "macho" attitude toward the deficit on Clegg's part -- one that he suggests made a Labour-Lib Dem coalition untenable.

To make his point -- and perhaps there is one to be made -- Miliband has invoked the spectre of the 1980s and former Pime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

"This is exactly what happened in the 1980s under Mrs Thatcher, but this time you have a Liberal Democrat party and a Liberal Democrat leadership which is frankly in cahoots with this agenda," Miliband added.

These comments point toward Miliband's expectations for Labour in a future election. Not only does he expect that a Labour victory would be possible in the next election -- indicating that he plans a fast rebuild of the party -- but it also indicates that Clegg has no real interest in forming a coalition of his own with the Liberal Democrats.

In other words, it would be all or nothing for the Labour Party under Ed Miliband. Whether this is admirably ambitious or unfortunately brash has yet to be seen.

John McDonnell: Disconnected

McDonnell sours grapes over his own withdrawal from Labour leadership race

Would-be Labour leader John McDonnell made a splash recently when he suggested that he would like to travel back to the 1980s and assassinate former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

McDonnell later issued a half-hearted apology. The next day he withdrew from the Labour leadership contest.

McDonnell -- who realized that he couldn't get the support of 33 MPs -- has since spoken out about his withdrawal. Oddly, he blames the Labour Party.

"What this has demonstrated is the disconnection of the parliamentary Labour Party -— not just with the Labour and trade union movement—but with the wider working class community," McDonnell fumed.

More particularly, McDonnell blames Labour's newest MPs.

"The parliamentary Labour Party is of a different make up than even ten years ago. Many of the left MPs have stood down," McDonnell complained. "The new MPs are career MPs—very few have come through the traditional roots, through the working class movement."

"Real politics will take place outside of parliament," McDonnell predicted. "I think it will be in the struggles, defending public services, community struggles and trade union fights."

"That extra parliamentary struggle will mean that the parliamentary party will have to respond," he continued. "It will be a test for the new MPs, to see if they rise to the occasion."

But the problem with McDonnell's leadership bid wasn't with Labour's newest MPs. It was with McDonnell himself.

It shouldn't be surprising that McDonnell withdrew from the Labour leadership race only days after musing about assassinating a sitting Prime Minister. (Thatcher is not Prime Minister today, but McDonnell suggested he'd like to time travel in order to kill her during the 1980s.)

Perhaps it doesn't behoove John McDonnell to expect him to understand why sitting MPs wouldn't want a party leader who would muse about assassinating the Prime Minister -- but it should.

Remember Kids, It's Conservatives Who Are Thuggish and Violent ;)

John McDonnell muses about assassinating Iron Lady

One of the more interesting ways to assess one's character is to ask them what they would do with a time machine.

If they could go anywhere in history, and change anything they liked, what would they do?

Labour leadership hopeful John McDonnell has his answer. He says that he'd like to "go back to the 1980s and assassinate Thatcher".

As in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher -- one of the famed "big conservative three" of the 1980s, alongside then-US President Ronald Reagan and then-Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

McDonnell made the remarks to a leadership candidate forum for labour unions. His remarks reportedly drew applause.

McDonnell has yet to get on the ballot for the Labour leadership -- party rules dictate that candidates must collect 33 nominations from sitting MPs in order to be formally nominated. However, if fellow candidate David Miliband -- who, along with his brother Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, has received his 33 nominations -- has his way, all six declared candidates will appear on the leadership ballot regardless.

In McDonnell, it appears that the Labour Party has a problem. McDonnell, along with Diane Abbott, are clearly the candidates of left within this race.

It's a key demographic that the party needs to keep in touch with. But candidates like McDonnell musing about assassinating a former Prime Minister -- while hiding behind the notion of victimhood because he was employed by a union, not working in the industry the union represented -- will only drive much-needed moderates away from that demographic, and possibly out of the party altogether.

There's clearly a moral reason why McDonnell cannot be allowed to simply write the remark off as "a joke". But there are practical political reasons as well.

The Labour Party cannot afford to let John McDonnell simply walk with that particular remark. It may be better off if McDonnell never manages to reach the 33-nomination threshhold.

Ed Miliband Drives Spear Into HIs Brother's Heart

Younger Miliband brother playing for keeps

When Ed Miliband followed his older brother, David Miliband, into the Labour leadership race, their mother Marion Kozak, must have been hoping for a tame contest.

With Ed Miliband's recent denunciation of Britain's participation in the Iraq War, any hopes of that have likely faded. Ed Miliband has introduced what will be the greatest wedge issue between himself and his older brother.

"As we all know, the basis for going to war was on the basis of Saddam's threat in terms of weapons of mass destruction and therefore that is why I felt the weapons inspectors should have been given more time to find out whether he had those weapons, and Hans Blix – the head of the UN weapons inspectorate – was saying that he wanted to be given more time," Miliband the younger announced. "The basis for going to war was the threat that he posed."

"The combination of not giving the weapons inspectors more time, and then the weapons not being found, I think for a lot of people it led to a catastrophic loss of trust for us, and we do need to draw a line under it," he continued.

In making the Iraq War a key issue in the Labour leadership contest, Ed Milibad also makes the Blair Doctrine a key issue.

The Blair Doctrine, simply described, reflected Tony Blair's belief that military intervention is often necessary in order to achieve humanitarian ends.

The Blair Doctrine represents an overly moralistic take on neo-conservative thinking in regards to foreign policy. Neo-conservative thinking recommends the diligent confrontation of known threats; Blair's variation of this notion recommends the diligent confrontation of humanitarian dangers.

While George W Bush's official pretext for the Iraq War depended heavily on the presence of weapons of mass destruction -- which, even if Hussein didn't possess them, he was certainly seeking them. Blair's official pretext relied on this as well, but a global do-gooder philosophy weighed heavily on the decision.

Not only is David Miliband perceived as being much closer to Tony Blair than his brother Ed is, but as Foreign Secretary Miliband had key responsibilities for the prosecution of the Iraq War. Miliband the younger carries no such baggage.

However, the older Miliband will also be able to boast involvement with the decision to end British combat operations in Iraq. Moreover, while the older Miliband was involved in managing the last years of that combat mission, he had no significant role in the decision to go to war there.

Naturally, David Miliband doesn't want Iraq to be at issue in this leadership campaign.

"While Iraq was a source of division in the past, it doesn't need to be a source of division in the future," he announced. "Iraq was a big issue at the 2005 general election but the vast majority of MPs and candidates I have spoken to this time say that while it was a big issue then it was much less of an issue in 2010."

"I said during the election campaign that I thought it was time to move on," he added.

Ed Miliband clearly has little intention of moving on from the Iraq War -- just yet. But while invoking the Iraq War will certainly help to divide Labour voters from his older brother, he isn't the only candidate to denoucne the war. Ed Balls and John McDonnell have also spoken out against the war.

While the war will divide Labour voters against his brother, that portion will likely splinter between the three candidates -- and a significant porton of them will look toward Balls as their candidate of choice.

Whether Ed Miliband envoking the Iraq war will lead to hard feelings between himself and Miliband the elder will be a matter for the private lives of the two brothers.

But foreign policy will be a key challenge for the Labour Party moving forward. The leadership campaign would have been remiss without addressing it.

Ed Miliband to Come Up the Middle?

Labour may ditch Blair/Brown baggage with compromise candidate

With the slate of candidates for the Labour leadership contest filling up, David Miliband remains the odds-on favourite to win. Ed Balls seems to be viewed as the number two man in the race.

But as Andrew Grice suggests, the dynamics that are so often at play in political leadership contests may give the winning edge to a third candidate: Ed Miliband.

As Grice notes, David Miliband was a staunch supporter of Tony Blair. In turn, Blair helped champion his careeer. Ed Balls is a close contemporary of Gordon Brown who, in Paul Martin-esque fashion, applied relentless pressure to help spur Blair's departure from office.

Balls will be saddled with memories of that relentless push.

Like any political party in need of unity, Labour members would very much like to put the Blair/Brown divide behind them.

For Ed Miliband, matters are rather different. He isn't seen as particularly close to Blair or Brown, despite having served in Brown's cabinet.

The differences between the two Milibands also seem be paramount in the minds of Ed Miliband's supporters.

"Ed Miliband's supporters do not like comparing him to his brother and there is a noticeable absence of war (and major policy differences)," Grice writes. "When pressed, they say David offers brains without charisma while Ed offers both and can therefore reconnect with Labour's lost supporters while uniting the party."

"Ed Miliband's critics claim he lacks the experience or instant judgement to handle unexpected events and would offer compromises rather than strong leadership – more Neil Kinnock (one of his main sponsors) than Mr Blair," Grice continues. "Mr Brown is said to have described Ed Miliband as 'a cross between an academic and a preacher'. Quite a lot of Labour members may like the sermon."

Last but not least, the preferential ballotting system used in Labour Party leadership votes may facilitate the younger Miliband in emerging as a compromise between his older brother and Ed Balls.

While Labour could stand to break from the bitter divisiveness of the Blair/Brown struggles, it would adopt a risk in electing Ed Miliband as a figure of compromise.

Compromise candidates are often perceived by the public as not having been fully imparted with their authority by the party membership.

For a party coming off of a catastrophic election loss, that could prove to be even more devastating than the loss itself. The Labour Party will need to weigh its options very carefully before making that kind of decision. Unfortunately, the preferential ballot may actually deprive them of the opportunity to do that.

Labour Leadership Race Getting Crowded

With the Labour Party extending the deadline for would-be leaders to declare their candidacy, the race to become the successor to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has gotten crowded.

It may get more crowded yet.

The campaign started slowly, with the Miliband brothers, David and Ed, declaring their candidacy. They have since been followed by Ed Balls, Andy Burnham, John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott.

Abbott is the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. In 1987 Abbott was the first black woman elected to the British House of Commons. Abbott is a second-generation Birton born to Jamaican immigrants. She has also contributed her talents to the Jamaica Observer newspaper.

Although Abbott, 56, was a member of the National Council for Civil Liberties, where she worked alongside former Labour Cabinet Ministers Paul Boateng, Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt, Abbot has no Ministerial experience -- likely a handicap in the contest.

John McDonnell, 58, is the MP for Hayes and Harlington. He chairs the Socialist Campaign Group, a group by the name of Public Services Not Private, and the Labour Representation Committee. He also serves a group of eight large labour unions as their benefactor in Parliament.

McDonnell will likely be the left-wing standard-bearer of the leadership campaign. Among his acts as a left-wing insurgent within the Labour caucus has been joining together with a number of Plaid Cymru MPs to demand an inquiry into the Iraq War that his own party initiated.

One could expect that a McDonnell victory would be the prelude to a significant leftward shift for Labour Party policy.

Leigh MP Andy Burnham, 40, seems to be the heavyweight of the newcomers. He has served as Secretary of State for Health, Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, and as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Burnham joined Labour at the tender age of 14, in protest to the Thatcher government's treatment of miners.

However, Burnham was also hit by the recent controversy over MPs' expenses. He attempted to claim 16,000 Pounds Sterling in expenses for a home he had been renovating in London. He submitted the claim on numerous occasions. It was rejected each time.

Whether or not the Labour Party manages to attract additional leadership candidates, the stage has been set for an intriguing leadership campaign.

Balls Deep for Labour Leadership

Ed Balls declares candidacy for Labour leadership

Youth is clearly the flavour of the campaign to replace Gordon Brown as the leader of the Labour Party.

David Miliband is 45 years old. His brother Ed is 40.

The newest candidate to declare for the Labour leadership, Ed Balls, finds himself in the middle at 43 years of age.

As leader, Balls would seek to build a party that listens to the people of Britain.

"I think it's really important we don't just talk to ourselves, we've got to go out and hear what the public say," Balls declared. If Labour had listened to its supporters, Balls seems to contend that it may not have suffered its recent defeat.

Perhaps Labour would have recognized what Balls contends to be a shift away from traditional Labour policy.

"I believe [New Labour] lost the moral basis of the Labour Party as it was founded ... the creation of a fair and just and peaceful and equal society," Balls remarked.

Balls, the Miliband brothers and any as-yet-uncontested candidates will compete for the leadership of the Labour Party over a four month period. Labour will decide the leadership on September 14, 2010.

The only thing that marks the difference between what this leadership contest is and what would have transpired had the party won the May 6 election is that the party would have been choosing not only a new party leader, but a new Prime Minister.

Gordon Brown had intended to resign as Labour leader within a year of the election.

So in the long run, this leadership contest means very little for Labour. Ed Balls will have to work very hard to be the one of this to-date young lot to emerge as the new Labour leader.

Labour Not Going Back to the Future

David Miliband says not to expect reprise of "New Labour"

If Labour party leadership candidate David Miliband has his way, the last incarnation of New Labour is the newest incarnation Britain will see for quite a while.

Many Labour supporters are eagerly awaiting for Labour to begin rebuilding, as it did under Tony Blair.

But Miliband notes that Labour needs no rebuilding process to energize party activists.

"Our party activists and our voters are amazing people," Miliband remarks. "In the midst of this barrage of money and media, they stuck with us. This party is not walking into the history books. It's determined to be a 21st-century party. The fight and the determination and the resilience of the party members, supporters and voters is a great thing. Also there's energy because we've 260 MPs. That's a 1992 level of MPs, not a 1983 level."

Miliband also suggests that the Liberal Democrat's coalition with the Tories has given Labour the opportunity to "forge a progressive alliance within the Labour party of all shades of progressive opinion".

Moreover, Miliband insists that the potential volatility -- or longevity -- of the coalition government strips Labour of the convenience of a long re-building process.

"We've got to be ready for it to fall and we've got to be ready for it to go long," Miliband insists. "It's very, very important that we have a fighting opposition, not fighting with ourselves but fighting the government where appropriate. And that we're an alternative government. Whoever is elected is going to have to be a credible prime minister."

"We underestimate this coalition at our peril. The Tories have always been about power," Miliband explains. "Clegg has revealed that actually he's about power as well. After decades of moral sanctimony from the Liberal Democrats, we can now be absolutely clear that when push comes to shove they're happy to drop child poverty and the job guarantee."

"But the determination they've both shown is something we underestimate at our peril," he continues. "Because there's no inevitability about the pendulum swinging. And we are going to have to be very canny about how we position ourselves. The electorate aren't going to be studying us carefully in this period but they're going to notice how we behave. And if we go back to yah-boo politics we'll make a big error."

Moreover, now that Labour has been scuttled out of office, the party will have the opportunity to define itself as the party of change -- which it certainly couldn't credibly do while it was in government.

"This was a change election and we were not the party of change," Miliband says. "I said in my conference speech last September that 'future' is the most important word in politics and we did not convince our fellow citizens that we were the party of the future."

One shouldn't mistake Miliband's comments for a suggestion that the Labour Party needs no renewal. Rather, the party needs a small-scale renewal, that being out of government -- and with fresh perspective that was previously lacking -- be able to pursue.

"We all said we needed to renew but we didn't sufficiently," Miliband explains. "People felt we were late to the game on issues like political reform. Antisocial behaviour – we lost focus on that. Immigration, late to the game with the Australian points system. Social care, late to the game."

Moreover, Labour declined to act on far too many opportunities to usher in reforms while they were in office.

"We got told that political reform was a middle-class issue and we basically stopped," he admits. "We did the freedom of information, human rights act, devolution of Scotland and Wales, London. But we basically got frightened off. It was at best half a political revolution. Maybe a third. We should have done the House of Lords, for goodness' sake."

Labour would certainly expect big things out of David Miliband as leader. But apparently, they shouldn't expect a reprise of Tony Blair.

David Miliband Makes Bid for Labour Leadership

David Miliband, Ed Miliband to contest Labour leadership

The race to replace former Labour leader -- and now former Prime Minister -- Gordon Brown has finally gotten started, as former Foreign Secretary David Miliband has declared his candidacy for the job.

As Labour leader, Miliband will aim to be prepared to defeat Prime Minister David Cameron and return to office as immediately as possible.

“We live in a new political world, and the responsibility of office may return sooner than people might think," Miliband announced. "I am standing because I believe I can lead Labour to rebuild itself as the great reforming champion of social and economic change in this country.”

Miliband has long been a fast-rising mover-and-shaker within the Labour Party. Before even winning a Parliamentary seat, Miliband was a key policy advisor. After winning election 2001 he quickly ascended to first the office of Environment Secretary, then to the Foreign Office.

Miliband insists that Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats' move to reject a coalition overture from Labour and instead align with the Cameron Conservatives has left Labour as Britain's last true voice for social justice.

“The decision of the Liberal Democrats to join a Conservative Government is a momentous one," Miliband insisted. "It creates an enormous responsibility for the Labour Party, revitalised in the right way, to represent all shades of progressive opinion and present itself as an alternative government. That is the task in front of us.”

But if Miliband is to win the Labour leadership, he may have to overcome an extremely familiar opponent: his brother, Ed Miliband.

Like David, Ed Miliband also has experience in cabinet, having served as Energy Secretary in Brown's government.

While other individuals, such as Ed Balls and Andy Burham, have also been described as likely candidates (Alan Johnson previously made some noise about seeking the Labour leadership, but has seemingly relented and backed the elder Miliband), many observers seem to believe that the Labour leadership will ultiamtely be decided between the Miliband brothers.

The rivalry between the two brothers -- likely simmering gently since childhood -- should make the Labour leadership campaign very interesting.

Gordon Brown Concedes Labour Leadership

Brown resigns as Labour leader, but not as PM -- yet

As Britain continues to wait to find out who will assume the role of government, and who will be Prime Minister following the May 6 election, one question surrounding the vote has been answered.

Gordon Brown has resigned as the leader of the Labour Party.

He conceded that Labour's failure to decisively win the 2010 General Election was a direct judgement on his leadership.

"I therefore intend to ask the Labour Party to set in train the processes needed for its own leadership election," Brown announced. "I would hope that it would be completed in time for the new leader to be in post by the time of the Labour Party conference."

Even while contenders line up to replace him, Brown will not support any of the candidates.

"I will play no part in that contest, I will back no individual candidate," he explained.

This comes at a most inopportune time for Labour, as their negotiators have been meeting with the Liberal Democrats to make their bid to form a government.

This places Labour in a quandry: if their overtures to the Lib Dems are to be successful, they'll have to promise a quality leader.

The candidates are already lining up.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Education Secretary Ed Balls are reportedly set to launch their leadership campaigns. Hull West-Hessle MP Alan Johnson is also being strongly pressured to join the contest.

David Miliband seems to be the favourite to become the next Labour leader. But contests like these seldom produce the self-evident winner. And with the prize at stake potentially being the privilege of occupying Number 10 Downing Street, one can expect that the contest will be fiercely contested.