The beauty contest begins: read Polly Toynbee in the Guardian today and her praise for James Purnell, the arch-Blairite Work and Pensions Secretary who is making a speech calling for Labour to emphasise fairness and social justice. David Miliband also enters the lists this week with a lecture in honour of his father, Ralph. Charles Clarke is expected to intervene (again) shortly. There will be others.
I am reminded horribly of the period 1994-7 when the prospective successors to John Major jostled for position, all making speeches coated in plausible deniability but with a core of political gelignite: vote for me as the next leader. The question then, as now, was how to bridge the gap between appealing to the electorate – the voters in a general election – and the selectorate – the party that chooses its leader.
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