Failed candidates highlight Labour’s southern discomfort

While the Labour leadership contest is in a miserable state, other parts of the party are trying to get on with working out how it can recover in 2020. Two big questions are how to deal with Ukip and how to make Labour a winning force again in the South of England and I look at the senior party figures who are trying to get going with answering these questions in this week’s politics column.

So anxious are those who actually fought the general election in the South that they’ve written a letter to all four leadership candidates and deputy leadership contenders to remind them of the importance of making Labour a winning force in the South West, the South East and East of England. The letter, signed by 13 candidates who failed to win in May, says:

‘Nearly a third of our target seats in 2020 will be in the South West, South East and East of England.