The Queen of second preference?

Almost exactly five years ago the Westminster village was gripped by the Conservative Leadership election. There was a real sense that the winner of that contest would go on to become Prime Minister, a sense that was proved to be correct. The 2005 Conservative leadership election, won by David Cameron, had an excitement to it that is very much lacking in the current Labour leadership election.

Oddly, as I have said previously, the next leader of the Labour party has a much better chance of becoming PM than David Cameron did in 2005. Despite this, even I, a self confessed political nerd, couldn't bring myself to watch the last televised hustings. I knew what all the candidates would say – it's what they've said in every other such meeting. So why does Labour's contest lack energy?

In the Conservative party, leadership elections go through several rounds before the final vote. The MPs each vote in runoff ballots over a period of several days until only two candidates remain, then the ordinary members of the party choose from those two. It was this successive election process that was exciting in 2005 as it showed the gradual and unexpected rise of David Cameron. Similarly, the primaries and caucuses of the 2008 US presidential election, in which Barack Obama rose to prominence, made that vote all the more exiting.

In Labour's leadership elections however, after the initial nominations, there is only one vote. Also, AV elections are notoriously difficult for pollsters to measure, so there is little interest in the opinion polls. This means it is hard to know what is happening in the country and which candidates are doing well or badly.

All the excitement will come on Saturday 25th September when the result is announced. As described in a previous blog, the tactics of the second preference vote is crucial. The Miliband brothers will most likely top the first round, but after that things may get more interesting. A look at what happened in the 2007 deputy leadership election indicates what AV can produce. Supporters of Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott are not likely to vote for a Miliband for fear it will knock out their candidate in the second round. So to whom will they give their second preference? It will probably be someone who is liked but perceived not to be a threat. Could Diane Abbott be that person?

The next Leader of the Opposition

The BBC's chief political correspondent, Laura Kuenssberg, has interviewed each of the candidates for the Labour leadership.

In a little over two months, one of the interviewees will be the Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, putting themselves forward as an alternative Prime Minister for the British people. So it's well worth a look for anyone with a vote in the forthcoming election.

Diane Abbott


Ed Balls


Andy Burnham


David Miliband


Ed Miliband

Prime Minister Diane Abbott in 2015

So, she's done it! Diane Abbott, along with Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and bothers David and Ed Miliband, received the MPs needed to get onto the ballot paper for the Labour leadership.

There is now a very small chance that Diane Abbott will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. When I say 'very small' I mean miniscule, but still a possibility nonetheless.

David Miliband is the favourite to get the leadership by some way. He was Foreign Secretary for three years, he's been an MP since 2001 and studied at Oxford and MIT. He also has the most nominations from Labour MPs, is seen as a Blairite and his brother Ed, is also going to appear on the ballot paper. Being the favourite though, doesn't mean he's going to win.

As I said in a previous post, the AV system of voting in the Labour party makes the outcome hard to predict. Diane Abbott is popular with the left of the party, which makes up a large section of the trade unions and party members who have 67% of the vote.

The next leader of the Labour party will face a fragile coalition government which has to make dramatic and unpopular cuts to the public services. It is entirely possible that the next Labour leader, if they do their job properly, could lead their party to victory at the next election and walk into Downing Street as Prime Minister. Which of the five candidates is best suited to do this job it is the unenviable decision for the Labour party.

So will Ms. Abbott one day be PM? At this point it seems very unlikely, but then people said the same about Margaret Thatcher in 1975 and Barack Obama in 2007.

Who will still be fighting in a weeks time?

Next Wednesday the nominations close for the Labour leadership. After a slow start, there has been a flurry of nominations this week. The biggest riser has been Diane Abbott who has moved from one nomination to seven in a matter of just a few days. This may not seem like much, but a big task for a candidate in any election is convincing the electorate they can win. This is especially true with Labour MPs, whose votes are public and they don't want to upset the new leadership by having supported another candidate.

Looking at the numbers, it seems like Ms. Abbott has little chance of winning. David Miliband has almost double the 33 MPs needed for nomination, his brother isn't far behind and Ed Balls has exactly the correct number of MPs to get him a place on the ballot. Andy Burnham still needs a few more nominations, but he insists he will make it. Then there is John McDonnell and Diane Abbott whose nominations are in signal figures. And yet, there still is a sense that Ms. Abbott could make it. The undeclared MPs are disproportionally form ethnic minorities, from whom Ms. Abbott says she has the most support and she is popular in the wider party too.

The system of nomination in the Labour party was specifically designed to keep left-wing candidates (like Ms. Abbott) off the ballot paper. In the actually election, two-thirds of the vote comes from the ordinary party members and the affiliated originations, who are significantly to the left of most Labour MPs, not to mention the general public. This means that when left wing candidates do manage to get onto the ballot, they tend to do rather well.

For example, left wing MP Jon Cruddas received the highest number of first preference votes in the 2007 Deputy Leadership election. If the Labour party had the same system for electing its leaders as the Conservatives, Mr. Cruddas would now be Deputy Leader. The reason why he is not is due to AV.

The Alternative Vote (AV) is a form of preferential voting. Instead of voting for just one candidate, the voter puts a '1' beside their first choice, and a '2' beside their second choice. If no one candidate gets more than the 50% of first preference votes, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and the second preference votes of that candidate are added to the remaining candidates. If no candidate still doesn't have over 50% of the vote, then the next candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and their second preference votes are redistributed as before. This goes on until one candidate has over 50% of the vote.

As I have said in previous blogs, where the second preference votes of eliminated candidates go is hard to guess, making the result hard to predict and the election that much more exciting. This time next week, we'll know what the ballot paper will look like and the election proper will have started.

Could Diane do it?

Today Diane Abbott through herself, grenade like, into the ring for the Labour leadership, blowing the contest wide open. Just yesterday, some Labour backbenchers were complaining that the declared and potential candidates were all men who 'look the same' (both physically and politically). With the intervention of Ms. Abbott, this is no longer true.

Diane Abbott was the first black woman to be elected to serve in the House of Commons, and is one of the most passionate speakers in Parliament today. Most people know her from her weekly appearances on the BBC's late night political programme "This Week", presented by Andrew Neil, which takes a light-hearted look at politics and shows-off Ms. Abbott's whimsical said.

She has never been a member of the government or shadow cabinet, but Diane Abbott has not been without criticism. In 2003, Ms. Abbott decided to send her son to a public school, this caused great controversy due to her previous criticism of Tony Blair and Harriet Harman for sending their children to independent schools (which were still state schools, although selective). Her actions were condemned as hypocrisy by many in the media, and she herself said it was "indefensible".

It seems unlikely she could win, but then people said the same about David Cameron in 2005 and Barrack Obama in 2008. The leadership election is going to go on for a long time, no one could have predicted the events of the last four weeks, who could predict what will happen in the next four months? As I said in an earlier post, the Labour party uses an AV electoral system, which makes the outcome difficult to predict.

The first challenge for any candidate is to find 33 Labour MPs to support them. Ms. Abbott claims she can do it, others are not so confident. But this afternoon the NEC announced that it had extended the deadline for nominations to 9 June. This might help John McDonnell to get nominated and, if he did, his candidacy would hinder Ms. Abbott's as both are seen as left-wing candidates and they may split that voting bloc.

So, can she win? That is the question for anyone voting in this election who might be thinking of supporting Ms. Abbott, and the question doesn't just refer to the leadership but also to the next general election. The Labour party are voting for someone who they can present to the public as an alternative Prime Minister - that's no small decision to make, no wonder it is going to take them so long.