Virtually every Labour MP I speak to seems to be standing for the Shadow Cabinet. And if they are not standing they are being bombarded by emails, letters, leaflets and pamphlets from those who are.
In some cases, the efforts are being counter-productive: ‘Did you see the size of his picture in his leaflet?’ or ‘They were very nice pictures of her on the doorstep or speaking in the chamber, but doesn’t she realise that’s what we all do?’
Or in another instance an existing member of the Shadow Cabinet clambered over a newly-elected MP to get to a longer-established colleague, prompting the wry comment ‘He hasn’t recognised me; he doesn’t realise that I’ve got a vote too.’
One candidate has just button-holed me and explained to me (in more detail than I really wanted) how the new system for electing the Shadow Cabinet would elect a higher proportion of women than his colleagues realised when they rejected the 50% and 40% options. As he put it: the men must vote for at least six women and will have to choose between, perhaps, fifteen female candidates – so there are over 1000 votes from male MPs to share out with each woman starting with a male ‘bonus’ of 70 votes; whereas although women MPs have to vote for at least six men there will be perhaps 60 candidates chasing less than 500 votes – an average of 8 or 9 each. As a result, he predicts that maybe half the Shadow Cabinet being women as a result of this arithmetic.
Interesting, if true.

I gather a lot of people are looking with interest at the late change in the betting odds offered on which Miliband would win the Leadership. I am told that large sums were placed backing Ed Miliband after the count was completed by the Electoral Reform Society but before anyone in the Labour Party was told the result.
Some people are asking whether some of those counting cashed in with their privileged information by placing bets on what they by then knew was a certainty.
And as one person said to me: ‘What do you expect? Isn’t the Electoral Reform Society entirely populated by unreconstructed pre-Clegg Liberal Democrats?’

At a hotel in Manchester, surrounded by hung-over Labour Conference goers, a blissfully unaware couple.
One says to the other: ‘Hey, did you see the younger brother won the Labour leadership thing.’
A reminder, if one were needed, that most people don’t take that much interest in politics.

My good friend Len Duvall AM, Chair of the London Labour Party, has just told Ed Miliband that ‘the hopes and aspirations of Londoners are on his shoulders’.
So that’s no pressure then.

Predictably, the tight election victory of Ed Miliband over his brother David has already got the Tory twitterati and the media pundits frothing at the mouth. Yes, David won in the MPs’ section and in the individual members’ section of the electoral college, but Ed’s very clear lead in the votes of the (far more numerous) Labour supporting members of affiliated organisations gave him the edge.
So what’s the story? That is the system and has been for thirty years. The electoral college has three parts. That’s the way it works.
Moreover, members of trade unions and affiliated organisations are not sheep. They don’t just vote as their leaders tell them. Their votes – several hundred thousand of them – reflect their perception of who will make the best Party leader.
And for many of those who voted – like me – for David, it was a close run thing. From the outset I knew I was going to vote for one of the Miliband brothers and only decided finally after the contest had been running for several weeks. And many – if not most – of those who gave David their first preference will have given their second preference to Ed.
So the Labour Party will unite behind its new leader and the Tories and the LibDems will be making a big mistake if they underestimate him or the support he will have.

I am listening to all the journalists, pundits and even some of those right at the heart of events saying that the result of the four-month Leadership election is ‘too close to call’.
Actually, this is code for saying: ‘I haven’t the faintest idea, but I don’t like to admit it.’
The reality is nobody – apart from those who have done the counting – knows the outcome. It may well be very close, like Healey-Benn nearly 30 years ago, or it could be 54:46 or 53:47, which is closer than Tony Blair’s victory in 1994, but still pretty decisive.
And who will win? Well, my exclusive prediction is that the winner will be a white male called Miliband.

I have just returned from the announcement by Harriet Harman, as Acting Leader of the Labour Party, of the result of the ballot for Labour’s nomination for London Mayor.  Ken Livingstone won convincingly by more than 2:1 over Oona King following a lengthy campaign in which huge numbers of London Labour Party members took part.

I had always been sure that Ken would win but the margin was substantially better than the 3:2 I had expected.

It is a very good basis for the forthcoming campaign, particularly following Ooona King’s very gracious and fulsome concession speech declaring her support for the successful candidate.

You know what it is like when you are eagerly awaiting something.  You can’t wait, even though you know it is only a matter of time.

But now – for me – the waiting is over.

Finally, just a couple of hours ago it arrived.

Not my Labour Party ballot paper – I got that at the beginning of the week.

No, it’s my personalised phishing email from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

Less than a day after HMRC announced that some six million people had paid the wrong amount of tax enterprising fraudsters began emailing people all over the country telling them that they were entitled to a tax rebate and inviting them to provide details of their bank accounts so that they could have said accounts emptied/be sent their entitlement.

I was beginning to feel left out, but now it’s arrived.

“Today after the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity, we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund.

Complete the individual tax refund form attached this confidential message.

After completing the form allow us 5-9 business days in order to process it.

Your verification form will only be valid only for 24 hours.

Sincerely,
HM Revenue & Customs“

The form itself is very user-friendly and asks for those hardy perennials: full address, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, telephone number etc - everything needed in fact to answer most standard bank security questions.  And is accompanied by a stern HMRC-like warning:

“Important: The tax law imposes heavy penalties for giving false or misleading information“

No doubt, I’m about the thirty-millionth person to receive one of these, but I can’t help wondering why the Government has done so little to warn people about these and to make it clear that HMRC will be WRITING to all those affected and would NEVER request such details by e-mail.

I’ve just returned from a lively event supporting Ken Livingstone’s campaign to be nominated as the Labour candidate for London Mayor in 2012. It was organised by Kurds for Labour and was well-attended.
The man himself was in lively form, sketching out a vision for the next Mayoral term which could be a fore-runner for the national Party’s offer to the electorate at the next General Election – just as the Labour administration in the London County Council led by Hebert Morrison in the 1930s demonstrated what a Labour Government nationally could deliver in 1945.
And who was that lurking at the edge of the room? Neither a Kurd, nor Labour, but former Tory MP, Andrew Pelling – motivated to be present apparently by an abiding dislike of Old Etonians.

In the run up to the first Mayoral elections in 2000 I was anything but a Ken Livingstone supporter.  Indeed, I even wrote an article in the Evening Standard entitled “London Deserves Better” arguing that neither Ken nor the emerging Conservative candidate at the time (one Jeffrey Archer – before he went to prison) were suitable candidates to be London Mayor.

But that was before I worked with Ken during his first term as Mayor.  For those four years, I led the Labour Group on the London Assembly and chaired the Metropolitan Police Authority and I saw at close quarters Ken’s commitment to London, his political courage and determination, and his ability to make things happen.

And a lot did happen.  There was the successful introduction of the congestion charge – something that most pundits were convinced would never happen when the provision was first included in the Greater London Authority Bill.  It required vision, drive and an attention to detail.  And Ken showed that he had all three.

There was the transformation of the bus service in London – so that the capital became the only part of the country where there was a shift of traffic away from other transport modes.  And, of course, those four years saw the birth of the Oyster Card – then an innovation, now an integral part of London life.

At the same time, London’s policing was turned round: morale increased; the haemorrhaging of police numbers (which had started under Conservative Home Secretary, Michael Howard) was reversed; Police Community Support Officers were introduced and began their visible patrols all over London, leading to the creation of Safer Neighbourhood Teams in every Council ward in the city; and crime rates that had been increasing for years started to come down.

In Ken’s second term, I was less closely involved.  However, all Londoners saw the leadership that successfully won the bid to host the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012 and that brought London together following the terror attacks in July 2005.  There was also the leadership shown on climate change, which established London as one of the leading cities in combatting the effects of global warming.

All of this was a big contrast with the Boris Johnson Mayorality, where despite the frequent announcements of “new” initiatives that either turn into damp squibs, like the “Story of London Festival“, or are re-packaged initiatives started under Ken’s period as Mayor.  The major so-called success has been the new cycle hire scheme – again originally initiated by Ken – but with the details mismanaged by Boris Johnson and his team – see the analysis by Helen at Boris Watch.

So why should Ken be the candidate in 2012?

The first point to make is that he is the best-qualified candidate.  An effective London Mayor must have a coherent vision for London.  And this means much more than merely stringing together a series of half-worked-through ideas.  Ken has that vision – a vision he has been refining and articulating throughout his political life.  What is more London’s Mayor must be committed to the job.  It should not be regarded as a stepping stone to some different office (as the current incumbent clearly regards it), nor should it be a consolation prize for someone who has failed in their political career elsewhere.  Ken is committed to London and I have already mentioned his political courage and determination, coupled with his ability to make things happen.

The second point is the breadth and clarity about what he would want to achieve for London and Londoners in the next Mayoral term.  This includes:

• the visionary proposal to make London the world’s first ‘Smart City’, utilising cutting-edge technology to the full;
• introducing electric buses to cut emissions;
• managing the tube upgrades more effectively so as to minimise disruption;
• refocussing housing investment on affordable housing;
• reinvigorating London’s cultural life with a commitment to live music;
• protecting and promoting jobs in London by engaging directly with the world’s great economies and capitalising on London’s diversity and diaspora to make this a reality;
• making the Living Wage a condition of procurement; and
• rebuilding the consensus on major infrastructure projects in London to strengthen not only London’s economy but to benefit the UK as a whole.

Can he win?  ConservativeHome clearly think he can, pointing out that “London isn’t the most hospitable territory for the Tories” and that it “won’t be easy” for Boris Johnson.  And as Steve Hart’s detailed analysis has shown the 2008 election:

“took place on a very bad night for Labour  …..  one of the worst nights of local election results since before the second world war, with Labour polling 24%.  …. On this terrible night for Labour Ken Livingstone actually increased his first preference votes from 685,541 in 2004, to 893,877 in 2008. This was not simply a consequence of a higher poll. He actually increased his share of first preference votes by 1.3% from 35.7 per cent to 37 per cent (the London wide Labour member vote increased by 0.32 per cent to 27.12 per cent, which was 10 per cent behind Ken?s vote).

Any reasonable interpretation of these results would suggest that on virtually any other Thursday of the last five years, Ken would have been likely to win. Ken?s share was higher than Labour achieved on General Election night in London – when the national results had Labour 10 per cent better than in 2008. On this alone, it is clear than Ken was outperforming Labour by a wide margin and also that, to a lesser extent, London Labour outperformed the rest of the country.”

The message is that Ken has consistently out-performed Labour in the elections he has stood in and as Steve Hart concludes:

“The evidence that Ken is a substantial electoral asset across London is substantial, whereas the only evidence regarding Oona is that she has lost a safe seat; and nothing whatsoever suggests that Ken?s rival for the nomination is an asset in any other part of London.”

Now this does not mean that Ken Livingstone is without his flaws – indeed no political leader with any flair ever can be.  Nor does it mean that I agree with all the judgements he made during his terms as Mayor (I disagreed, for example, with his decision to extend the original Congestion Charge zone westwards rather than creating a separate zone).  However, I am clear that having Ken Livingstone back as London’s Mayor would be good for London and Londoners and that Ken Livingstone is the candidate best-placed to win the Mayorality for Labour and to get rid of the current ill-focused and chaotic regime.