Tristram Hunt is not standing as Labour leader and will instead back Liz Kendall, he finally confirmed at the end of a long speech this morning. The party’s Shadow Education Secretary had some fun forcing hacks to listen to his assessment of Labour’s failure, which took a while, before he announced this, saying:
‘It is clear to me that I do not have sufficient support to be certain that I could run for the leadership myself.. there is a real risk that I might help restrict the choice for the party and that is not a risk that I am prepared to accept.’
He complained that other candidates had been working on their campaigns for longer, saying they had ‘longer, more established ambitions’. Perhaps this is a bit politically naive from him, or perhaps it suggests a certain loyalty to the leadership that Cooper and Burnham never quite exhibited.
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