Robert's terribly good
until his batteries go down.
Energizer bunny.
That's true.
Ready?
Go.
Labour's leading indicators.
Okay, Robert.
It's very exciting, because...
We've got another election.
...the shortlists are
in for the Oscars.
But we're going to talk
about the Labour leadership.
What should we call these?
The Jeremies?
The Jeremies.
Let's call them the Jeremies.
Excellent.
And we've got all
our major players
here to help explain
what's going on.
And of course, until April
- don't get too excited,
folks - because
until April, Jeremy
himself remains leader
of the opposition.
But there are lots of people
vying to succeed him and to be
deputy leader of
the Labour party,
which is also its own elected
position with its own mandate.
So we've got Jeremy
benignly watching over it.
Yes, absolutely.
Let's put him up there.
We'll put him up here, watching
benignly from the allotment.
And down here, this sort
of large, shadowy figure
of Len McCluskey, head
of Unite, the union.
Has been incredibly powerful as
a backer of the Corbyn regime
in the Labour party.
So he's here because
he obviously wants
to retain this giant influence.
He's got a lot to
lose, hasn't he?
Will he be able to?
And Jeremy Corbyn's
office was stuffed full
of McCluskey allies.
He had Karie Murphy.
He had Andrew Murray.
He had Jenny Formby as the party
general secretary, and Seumas
Milne as well.
So he's probably got
as much of an empire
to lose as Jeremy Corbyn.
Absolutely.
We've learned who's
in the running, who's
got through the initial stage
of being nominated by the MPs
and MEPs.
And so far, Len McCluskey's
organisation has not yet
declared who it's
officially backing,
but we think that it will
be Rebecca Long-Bailey,
who is the Corbynite
left candidate.
She's been desperately trying
to say she's not the continuity
Corbyn candidate.
What's Barry
Gardiner doing here?
Barry Gardiner...
look.
We were cutting
out all the faces.
At the point where we were
cutting out the faces,
Barry Gardiner was
thinking about standing.
He didn't make it.
There will be no Gardiner's
question time, sadly.
Say bye bye, Barry.
Rebecca Long-Bailey,
shadow business secretary.
Very, very close
to Jeremy Corbyn.
But she's not out in front.
No.
When this contest
began, when it was clear
that Jeremy Corbyn
lost the election,
the left of the
party, the Corbynites,
needed a flag-waver.
Rebecca Long-Bailey had been
in place for a long time
as their next-generation
candidate,
a protege of John McDonnell.
She was the one they were
all pinning their hopes on.
But it did feel like it's
come a bit too soon for her.
She's only been in the
Labour party for 10 years.
Only been in
parliament for five.
She's perfectly able, but she
is still learning the way,
and she hasn't fizzed out of the
blocks, which means, therefore,
that the front-runner in the
polls so far is Keir Starmer,
who is the shadow
Brexit secretary,
the man who led the Remain
argument within the Labour
party.
The fact that he is the
front-runner may not
be entirely
coincidental to the fact
that all of the Corbynite
left is saying what they need
is somebody who's not from
London, not a man, and not
a Remainer.
So you could see that in a
run-off between these two,
those criteria would
favour one candidate.
They would.
They would.
They would.
But I think we should
just emphasise quite
how far out in front Keir
Starmer is at the moment.
When you look at the
nominations from the...
You were specifically
told not to make
this prep sheet visible.
God, I'm a reporter.
You are defying the producers.
I've got a notebook.
What do you want me to do?
Keir Starmer has
got 89 nominations
from the parliamentarian.
It's 102 isn't it?
Yeah, but it's plus the
MEPs as well, remember?
Rebecca Long-Bailey has 33.
So they are the
two front-runners.
But you can see the
scale of the challenge
if the leader of the
opposition was voted on just
by the parliamentary party.
But of course, it isn't.
And of course, that is roughly
the level of nominations
that Jeremy Corbyn
got when he stood.
He only just squeaked
over the line.
Most of the MPs
were against him.
So support from the MPs
themselves is certainly
no guarantee of victory.
Although, as you were saying,
the only poll that's been
conducted... have I got
to this poll too early?
Yeah.
As you were saying...-
Park it.
Park it.
Lisa Nandy.
Park the poll, because I want
to talk about Lisa Nandy.
He's my personal favourite.
I know we're
completely unbiased,
but you'll like her very much.
And also, Jess
Phillips got through.
Let's clear the deputy
leadership candidate.
Yeah.
Let's get the deputies
out of the way.
Leadership candidate's down.
Len.
I'm putting you on the
floor for a minute, Len.
Don't take it personally.
Clive didn't make it, either.
Clive.
No, but talk about Clive,
because you liked him.
I like him, personally.
I think he's
interesting and clever.
He's a former soldier.
He could have been an
interesting candidate
for the Labour party, but he's
fighting for a lot of the same
left space that Rebecca
Long-Bailey and, to some
extent, Lisa Nandy were
fighting for in that Corbynite,
soft Corbynite place, and
he just didn't make it.
So I'm afraid he...
Bye, Clive.
Bye, Barry Gardiner.
Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
Out.
Now, Lisa Nandy.
She got 31, which is not bad
if you consider that Rebecca
Long-Bailey, who's the
official left standard bearer,
as you said...
for Lisa Nandy to get 31
and to be safely through
is quite good.
Jess Phillips and
Emily Thornberry.
They just made it through.
23.
23 apiece.
...each.
And in fact, even on
the morning of the day
the nominations closed,
Emily Thornberry
looked like she
might not make it.
So that's quite a
victory for her.
So if we ranked them in MP
order, it goes like that,
doesn't it?
We've got Keir Starmer
seen as, possibly,
quite sober, prime ministerial,
and attempting to say, let's
put factionalism behind us.
I've got people in my
campaign from both the left
and the right of the party.
Let's put the
divisions behind us.
We've got Rebecca Long-Bailey
of the left, the left candidate.
Lisa Nandy, trying
to make a pitch,
saying we've got to bridge the
divide between these two halves
of our party, between
the metropolitan,
liberal wing of Labour
and our heartland towns.
She represents
Wigan, a Leave seat,
and she's been very
interesting ever
since the referendum
on the idea of people
who feel their whole culture
has been left behind,
and they've been disenfranchised
in the industrialised areas.
We've got Jess
Phillips, Birmingham MP.
Very, very outspoken.
Very anti-Corbyn.
And very, very anti-Corbyn.
The most anti-Corbyn,
probably, of the whole lot,
because she never served.
And then Emily Thornberry
here, of course, was
shadow foreign secretary
but has got a problem,
hasn't she, which is maybe
why she only just made it
onto the ballot.
Which is she?
Is she an anti-Corbyn
candidate, or is she
a continuity Corbyn candidate?
I think that's quite
tricky for her, possibly.
I don't know that
I would ever have
thought of her as a
continuity Corbyn candidate.
Obviously, another way
of cutting these...
But close to leadership.
...would be this way.
These are the three who
served under Jeremy Corbyn.
Lisa Nandy did
briefly, and then quit.
Resigned.
Yeah.
Jess Phillips never did.
So these three all
stuck with him.
These two didn't.
Emily Thornberry, prior to
Jeremy Corbyn's election,
would have been seen very much
on the Blairite, Brownite end
of the party.
Certainly no left radical,
but she was Jeremy
Corbyn's next-door
neighbour and Islington MP.
She stayed loyal.
She got promoted.
She had been sacked
from the shadow cabinet
by his predecessor for
an odd tweet, essentially
mocking people.
She denies it, but
essentially mocking someone
for having England
flags from their house.
I think her problem,
fundamentally,
is that she's appealing for
much of the same territory
that Keir Starmer
was appealing for.
Well, she's another
North London lawyer,
apart from everything else.
That's also true.
There's a lot of
lawyers in this.
Those are all lawyers.
The more mainstream,
loyal-to-Corbyn group
who are absolutely not
Corbynites were pro-Remain,
did oppose the leader on some
of his more extreme positions.
But she's essentially been
blown out of the water
by Keir Starmer.
So far.
So far.
That's right.
It's true.
I think everything we say,
we've got until April.
Look what happened in 2015,
when Jeremy Corbyn was elected.
That's absolutely true.
He came from nowhere.
But it is quite hard to see
the space that she carves out
for herself in this campaign,
because Keir Starmer
has made a lot
more of the running
in the centrist, safe
candidate position.
And if you want a
real anti-Corbynite,
you've got Jess Phillips.
Lisa Nandy is, as you say,
I think, a very interesting
candidate who, had she not
walked out of Jeremy Corbyn's
shadow cabinet, would
probably have been
a very, very strong contender.
Speaks to a different
demographic.
Doesn't speak to all the
criticisms of London lovies.
So I think, like
you, that she is
going to be a more significant
figure in this campaign.
I think Emily Thornberry's
got a lot of problems.
She's been beaten to the
punch by Keir Starmer,
and I don't know
that she'll recover.
The other thing is, though,
you described Keir Starmer
as leading the anti-Brexit
charge for Labour.
He did, but he was the Brexit
spokesman during a period
in which the Labour party
didn't take a clear position
on Brexit.
For example, if you were
also a passionate Remainer,
for example, you might
say, well, actually,
Jess Phillips is my
person, because she's
the most uncompromising
Remainer.
In fact, since
declaring her candidacy,
she's gone as far as to hint
that the Labour party position
might be rejoined.
She rowed back on
that very quickly.
She had to row back.
But that's obviously where
her heart lies, right?
Whereas Keir Starmer,
in his very loyal way,
has been treading a fine line
between the Corbyn leadership
and the remaining membership
for his whole time
in the shadow cabinet.
I think when you were
judging and criticising any
of the people, you
have to allow...
Analysing.
Analysing.
You have to allow
for a certain fact.
Number one is, they're going to
be members of the Labour party,
so they're all going to be
people who wanted the Labour
party to win the last election.
Even though it was
led by Jeremy Corbyn,
all these people campaigned
to make Jeremy Corbyn
prime minister in
one way or another.
People who are most hostile
to Jeremy Corbyn, especially
of the three who stayed
in his shadow cabinet.
Well, they're ruined by this.
They were part of the problem.
They didn't stand up and fight.
I think at some point,
you've got to say, look,
there are people in the Labour
party who decided that it was
better to just stay in the
tent and wait for their moment
to pull the party backwards.
And I think you have to give
them that much in this contest.
And that comes to the Brexit
point you were making.
I think Keir
Starmer's view was: I
need to be in the room
fighting the argument, pulling
the party towards
what I, Keir Starmer,
consider to be a
sensible Brexit policy.
Nudge, nudge, nudge.
Yeah.
His position was, we ought
to back a second referendum.
That was the party's
position in the election.
So for good or ill, he
did win that battle.
Something else that obviously
created a huge problem
for the Labour party, morally
as well as in the election,
was the anti-Semitism crisis.
Keir Starmer has been
very forthright in saying
that he signs up to all of
the demands of the Board
of Deputies of British Jews.
All of them have now said this.
But it was very
interesting the way
it happened, though, wasn't it?
Because it became impossible
for them not to sign up.
So that's a break with the
past for the whole slate.
Yes.
And we thought it
was remarkable.
She wrote a piece for the
Jewish Chronicle in which said
the Labour party needs to
get down on its knees and beg
forgiveness, which
seemed excessive, to me,
as a campaigning position.
There will be florid language
in the next four months,
I can tell you.
All of them understand what
a major problem this was.
The only one, I think, who's got
problems on the anti-Semitism
issue is Rebecca Long-Bailey.
Not because I think she has any
particularly bad form on this,
but because she was
so unquestioningly
supportive of Jeremy Corbyn
all the way through this.
Didn't really push back
against it in any way
that we're aware
of and therefore
is seen as a genuine backer
of him during these problems.
We know that Keir Starmer, we
know that Emily Thornberry,
even in shadow cabinet, did
raise concerns and push back
on these issues.
This is interesting, isn't it?
Because our fellow journalists
have been having a really fun
time, asking each of them,
in turn, how many marks,
out of 10, would you give Jeremy
Corbyn for his leadership,
having lost the fourth
general election in a row
for the Labour party?
Rebecca Long-Bailey
said 10 out of 10,
which is going to hang
over her, arguably,
for the whole
leadership contest.
Emily Thornberry did a
wonderful three-part answer.
I think she did two out of 10
for anti-Semitism, eight out
of 10 for firing up the
membership, and 0 out of 10
for winning elections, which
is hard to argue, really.
I think these were
pretty low, weren't they?
I can't remember.
I think Jess Phillips
was quite tough.
Interestingly, of
course, Keir Starmer,
when asked this awkward question
about the dear, sainted Jeremy,
refused to answer.
That, of course,
is the right way
to proceed if you
want to be leader
of the opposition and, indeed,
prime minister one day.
You have to know when to put
people like us in our place
and not answer an
embarrassing question.
So that was probably quite
a good sign of his capacity
to handle himself.
Do you think...?
It's a strange thing, isn't it?
Because it wasn't a
difficult question to dodge.
The "I'm not playing scores" was
the obvious answer, as you say.
Jeremy is a colleague
and a friend.
I would expect...
I wouldn't possibly.
...anybody who thinks they could
be prime minister to be good
enough to swerve that question.
And I think Rebecca
Long-Bailey's error was not
just saying 10 out of 10.
It was walking into the
trap in the first place.
It showed her naivety
at two levels.
Yeah, a bit callow.
That's what it was... no good.
After she made the
mistake, everyone else
had time to think about what
they would say in response.
Emily Thornberry's trick was
to answer in such a complex way
that people have
forgotten what she said.
I'm just going to mention
it because I like it.
Emily Thornberry started
to talk about herself
as a tough old bird,
because apparently that's
what Len McCluskey called her.
And she's taken
that as a excellent,
useful piece of
personal branding,
a bit like Theresa May adopted
'bloody difficult woman'.
Because she's going
to need something
to break through against
these two, who are quite
ideasy and very outspoken.
There is an interesting
question here, which is that,
right up to this
leadership contest,
almost everybody in the
Labour party was saying,
we really need a woman leader.
We're the only major
political party that's
ever been led by a woman.
It is notable.
Let's face it.
Yeah.
And so that is an
issue for Keir Starmer.
There are plenty of people in
the Labour party who will agree
with that.
So I think, in a way, what
Emily Thornberry was reminding
people is, actually,
if it's him or me,
and you want a woman
leader, it's me.
The problem is that, I think,
it terms of outspoken and tough,
there may be others...
There may well be others
...with a claim on that.
The next stage is that they
then have to go and secure 5 per
cent of all the constituency
Labour parties to back them.
Or three affiliate
organisations,
including two trade unions.
So that's where we are on that.
Now, I think this is
also very interesting.
Keir Starmer has
already secured Unison,
which is a huge trade union.
And as we've said, the Unite
union of Len McCluskey,
which is very left, in
terms of its politics,
has yet to declare.
There are rumours that maybe
Lisa Nandy can persuade one
of the other really big unions,
like the GMB, to back her,
because she's got such
a clear policy platform.
In terms of who's backing
them, Jess Phillips
is seen as the choice
of the Blair right wing.
What I wonder is,
as it goes forward,
does that really start to hurt
Jess Phillips, being identified
in that way?
Because the others are all being
asked to place themselves on, I
suppose, what's the... should
we do a left-right thing?
Yeah, and that gets
quite tricky, actually.
I must admit, I would not
have thought of Jess Phillips
as being rightwing.
But what she's become
is anti-Corbynite.
If you define rightwing as
anti-Corbynite, she's there.
Once upon a time, you might
have gone something like that?
I don't know.
Yeah, it's interesting.
When she arrived, you
wouldn't have thought of her
as a Blairite.
She's very motivated by...
her background is domestic
violence, charities,
anti-poverty in urban
Birmingham, all the rest of it.
But she has made her priority
the idea that Labour has
to gain power to help
any of these people,
which in a weird way...
So of that act of Blairism...
...even daring to
say, we should win.
...she's absolutely out there.
We should try and win.
She's out there.
And I think that's
absolutely right.
I have to say, I don't think
all five of these people
will make it to the ballot.
Rebecca Long-Bailey
will make it.
I'm sure Keir
Starmer will make it.
Like you, I think Lisa
Nandy will make it.
Not sure about these two.
I think she's going to have
to get the constituencies,
and are there enough
of them at the moment?
I don't know.
This is really interesting.
After they get through
this, then that stage,
then it goes to a ballot of the
full Labour party membership.
And what's been very
interesting about...
the only polling that's
been done so far was very
intelligently done.
It was done by the Queen Mary
politics department professor
Tim Bale.
And they didn't
prompt with names,
so it's really useful, because
it's not just popularity.
It's also name recognition
and how well known they are.
And what was interesting is that
Jess Phillips's name came up
a lot without prompting.
On that measure, Lisa Nandy
did really, really badly
and has very low
name recognition.
But of course, Jeremy Corbyn
was not mentioned spontaneously
by members back in 2015.
And we don't know
he's still the top.
Don't know he's still the top.
All political surveys, of
course, don't know wins.
What that really tells you
is that the membership is
open to hearing
from these people.
And I think it has relatively
few preconceived views
on any of them apart,
perhaps, from Jess Phillips.
And she could still
surprise them on the upside
by her passion and her charisma.
And her charisma, yeah.
But of course, Keir Starmer
was out in front again.
Yes.
Any of these candidates...
if they make it through
to the ballot, they've got an
audience that wants to hear
from them, and he's persuadable.
And I think this is where
the other problem for Rebecca
Long-Bailey comes in.
She'll have the left, which
is in control of the party,
on her side.
But when it comes to
the party leadership,
you have to have the charisma
and the wow factor that
pulls you over the
line, because it's not
like some of those
internal elections
that Momentum can
organise, where
they're running slates from
people you've never heard of.
This time, the members
will have their own views
of these candidates.
I'm glad you mentioned
Momentum, because of course,
apart from the unions, Momentum
is not an official affiliate
organisation of
the Labour party.
It's separate.
But it's announced
that it's going
to ballot its members
on who it should back.
And that could be
quite interesting,
because of course...
It's quite an Albanian
ballot, as I recall.
Well, we shall see.
It's a consultation of a sort.
And you might expect...
Do you agree with this decision
to back Rebecca Long-Bailey?
Well, no, but Momentum
itself will split, right?
I know.
Because John Landsman, who's
the founder of Momentum,
he's actually in charge
of Rebecca Long-Bailey's
official campaign.
But Laura Parker, who's the
other very senior person
in Momentum, was
backing Clive Lewis
and is very disappointed
to drop out.
So I think that it'll be really
interesting to see whether
Momentum, in a way, tack
left, as many expect them
to, or whether they might -
quite a significant number
of them - break, for
example, for Jess Phillips,
who's well known, seen as
a fighter, good on telly,
arguing the Labour case.
I think one of the key issues
that is really interesting so
far, and I wouldn't expect it
to be any other way just yet,
is that very few
of these candidates
have actually articulated where
they are in a policy position.
Quite a lot of them
are just saying...
very few.
Didn't say none.
Keir Starmer.
I think Emily Thornsberry,
Rebecca Long-Bailey.
What we don't want to do is
throw the Corbynite baby out
with the bathwater.
There were problems,
but I'm not looking
to oversteer - I think oversteer
is the word - the other way.
You've got Jess Phillips,
who said, no, no.
It's been a catastrophe.
We need to sort it out.
And as you say, Lisa
Nandy, who's a bit more
interesting about this.
Quite a lot of them are dodging
what exactly you keep, and Keir
Starmer did a
television interview,
and he was asked about
all the nationalisations.
And the only one he
actually specified was rail.
I think there's an issue
where people are projecting,
particularly, on Keir Starmer.
He's tried to position
himself as much more leftwing
than people assume he is.
Very much so.
: On the other hand, he's been
cautious about which policies
he'd keep.
And I think there's an element -
and this is where he has risks,
I think - of, if you keep
this canvas too blank,
eventually people will start to
paint the wrong things on it,
as far as you're concerned.
Well, absolutely.
They might start to ask, well,
where is that you do stand?
All of those
conversations that I've
heard, and the interviews
so far, when they all say,
let's not throw the baby
out with the bathwater,
and most of them do,
you do wonder, well,
which bit of the
baby or the bathwater
do you think the
electorate liked?
Because it seems like the
electorate pretty much threw
the baby out with the bathwater,
in terms of Labour's offer.
The line that many
of them are peddling
is, the public
liked our policies.
They didn't like us.
And that's roughly
true, but you can't
separate those two things.
What that doesn't allow
for is the salience
of any individual policy.
If you say to the public,
do you like the idea
that energy companies
should be renationalised,
you might get a positive
result. But if you
say, how important in all
the things that matter to you
is this, it might well
be quite a long way down.
So it's often a mistake people
confuse salience with support.
I just want to look up here
at these people who want to be
deputy leader of the party,
because they're in this
parallel process - Jeremy,
I'm going to put you up there
for now - because a lot of
people have been interested
that Angela Rayner, shadow
education secretary,
is not down here with this
lot, because she's got a lot
of potential, and she...
talk about way out ahead.
She got 88 nominations from
the parliamentary party
for her deputy leadership
bid, and she probably
would have got a decent
number to get her through.
Absolutely.
So do we assume
she's hanging fast,
and she's going to become the
leader after one of these?
She's a flatmate of Rebecca
Long-Bailey's, and they
did agree that they would
not fight each other.
Many people think the wrong
candidate went forward.
She doesn't have
the Corbynite cred.
But the meanest thing that
anyone said about Rebecca
Long-Bailey - she is
not the best candidate,
even in her own flat, which
really is going, isn't it?
Angela Rayner's got an
awful lot going for her.
It would be quite
a surprise if she
loses the deputy leadership.
And if she were to
win, and does it well,
but they don't win the election.
The deputy leader is not
a very important job.
But she would be well-placed.
If she were deputy,
she would get a big job
in the shadow cabinet.
So I think she's an
interesting figure,
and she has cut-through, and
you could certainly see her...
She's quite left, right?
Well, she backed Andy
Burnham, originally,
in the leadership conversation,
when Jeremy Corbyn won.
So she's leftish.
Leftish.
She's left enough.
She's left enough for the
membership, I would say.
Richard Burgon, who
we've got here...
Is the proper
Corbynite candidate.
He's the proper
Corbynite candidate,
and he didn't do
very well at all.
He just squeaked in with 22.
So he's through to
this next stage.
But you see, the
Corbynite ticket
is Rebecca Long-Bailey
and Richard Burgon,
but he's not doing so well.
Something to inspire.
Yeah, that's right.
I think it's going to take quite
a big series of setbacks here.
We've got...
Dawn Butler.
Dawn Butler.
Dawn Butler, who actually
did not do too badly at all,
in terms of nomination.
She got 29.
She's actually, probably to
the left of Angela Rayner,
do you think?
Yes.
She's a very loyal Corbynite.
She is, yes.
Well, Corbyn's frontbencher.
Rosena Allin-Khan, MP for
Tooting, an NHS doctor,
didn't do too badly, either.
She got 23, so
she's just through.
She was the one who did
that Love Actually video
before Boris Johnson did it.
It's like, don't vote for him.
Vote for her.
I think she's got
a lot of smarts
and deserves to be up at the
front of the party somewhere.
Well, some of this is to do
with placing a marker down,
isn't it?
If you're an
individual, you want
to put yourself forward so
you're in the shadow cabinet.
And this guy's interesting.
And Labour's leader in
Scotland, Ian Murray.
Oh, he's nameless.
How appalling.
I'm so sorry, Mr Murray.
If you're watching,
I do apologise.
The thing that's
interesting about him.
34, you see.
That's pretty decent.
That is pretty decent.
He has the unanimous support of
all the party's Scottish MPs.
: Because he is the...
Only one.
...only remaining
Labour MP in Scotland,
which is extraordinary.
If we were having this
conversation five years ago,
you wouldn't think
that was possible.
He's the only Labour
MP in the village.
But that makes it impossible
to ignore his voice,
because if you don't listen to
the one person who's carried
on making it work in
his Edinburgh seat,
when all around you, Labour
has crashed to defeat...
now, he's had to go around
denying that he's a Blairite...
Yes.
...because he's been, again,
such an outspoken critic
of the Corbyn style of
leadership and the left-wing
policies.
But I'm putting him
here on the right hand.
But anyway, he's had to
disavow the idea of Blairism.
I think there are two ways to
view this appendage Blairite.
There is the way that says
neoliberal, very pro-market,
the policies of New
Labour and Tony Blair.
And nobody who pushes those is
going to win this leadership
election.
That's just not where
the Labour party is.
It's not where the
economic argument is.
It's not where Boris Johnson is.
But there is another meaning
of Blairite, I think,
which is, do what you
have to do to win,
because the truth is,
however pure you are,
it's no use to anybody
if you've lost.
Well, that's the
platform so far.
That's where Jess
Phillips and others,
I think, and I think Angela
Rayner is a little bit
in that camp as well.
I think that's going to be
the dividing line, eventually,
in this contest,
as it shapes up.
These people, they're
going to be doing hustings
all over the country.
They're going to be
on the same platform
in umpteen different places
all through the week, saying
the same thing.
Their speech is never
going to change.
But eventually, to break
through, one of them
is going to have to say
something interesting, which
actually is what
Jeremy Corbyn did.
One of them's actually
going to have to say...
Don't set them up
to fail, Robert.
We've got four months.
...something meaningful
and decisive that says,
this is the direction the
party needs to go into.
And I think that must be an
exhaustion within Labour party
members.
They've lost four
elections in a row.
What do we need to do to win
without selling our souls?
And I think that's
where victory will...
and the other thing they need
is somebody who can actually cut
through, because it's very
difficult being leader
of the opposition in a
parliament where you have
nothing close to a chance
of defeating the government.
They're not going to be
making the news by threatening
a defeat for the government.
They've got to find other ways
of damaging the government
and being listened
to, and I think
they're going to find that
it's going to come as a shock.
Labour hasn't been irrelevant
in parliament since 1987
or something, so they're going
to find it quite hard to make
themselves heard, and they're
going to need people who can
cut through.
And that's where, I think, Keir
Starmer's biggest weakness is.
For all the professionalism
and competence
- and there's lots of good
reasons to support him
- he's not the most
exciting candidate.
I will conclude by saying that
when Tim Bale and his crew
did similar polling
in 2015, as they've
done with this lot
in the last few days,
Jeremy Corbyn had less
name recognition and less
level of support than even
people who are currently
running for deputy
but not for leader.
So it really is all to play
for four months of hustings.
So I guess, by the
end of it, we're
saying that it could
actually be any of them,
because although Keir Starmer
is way, way out in front,
it's a long process,
and it's potentially
quite an unpredictable process.
We don't yet know, about lovely
Len and where his support is
going to go, although
clearly, he would probably...
I think we do.
...want them.
I think we do.
We don't speak for
Rebecca Long-Bailey.
But will that alienate
the membership?
They've seen him back Jeremy
Corbyn into a disastrous corner
on policy and positioning.
I think the arguments: most
of all, it's Jeremy Corbyn.
Probably the most charismatic.
Most, obviously, exuding
managerial professionalism.
And most ideasy.
Dark horse, ideasy candidate.
And I don't think Emily
Thornberry's going
to make it, so something else.
Yeah, something else.
Something else.
Let's do this again
in a few weeks.
