Who's worse - Harman or Cooper?

The Evening Standard has reported that a Cabinet minister is planning to approach Treasury Minister Yvette Cooper to persuade her to stand as a "Stop Harriet" candidate for the Labour leadership if Labour loses the next election.

I really don't know who is worse - Feminist, politically correct Harriet Harperson or the charmless, Luke Skywalker-pixie Yvette Cooper.

As a Tory, i'd be ecstatic if either became Labour Leader after Brown is defeated at the next general election (or if he bails out beforehand). As long as Harman or Cooper were Labour leader, Tory rule would be assured.

Christ, they would make people like Brown, Kinnock and Foot seem popular!

UPDATE: James Forsyth on the Spectator's CoffeeHouse blog writes: "it is only fair to point out that the makeover and media training Cooper has had have worked; she has gone from being one of the worst frontline Labour performers to one of the best. Her intellect—if not her judgement—should also not be in doubt." I'm sorry James, she may have a reasonably high IQ but all that media training hasn't done squat. She is STILL one of Labour's worst media performers. She is simply awful and i cannot imagine how her style (not to mention the nonsense she spouts) appeals to anyone other than hard-core Labour supporters. If i were her, i'd ask for a refund for that media training! And makeover - what makeover? She still looks like Luke Skywalker for crying out loud!

Cranmer's Labour Dream Team

Cranmer has blogged about what he believes would be an election winning team for Labour.

I'm not as convinced as Cranmer is that it would secure Labour an "easy" fourth term win. I doubt very much whether it would even produce a hard-fought victory.

But nonetheless, it is a hell of a lot better than Labour's current government line-up even though it still has many duds in the list (e.g. Byers, Bradshaw, Blears, Davies, Woodward and Bryant).

See for yourself from the list below:

Cranmer's winning team:

• Prime Minister - Alan Johnson
• Chancellor of the Exchequer - Frank Field
• Home Secretary – John Denham
• Foreign Secretary (and Europe Minister) - Gisela Stuart
• Health Secretary – Stephen Byers
• Education Secretary – Alan Milburn
• Justice Secretary – Ben Bradshaw
• Business Secretary – James Purnell
• Environment Secretary – Hazel Blears
• International Development Secretary – Hilary Benn
• Defence Secretary – Quentin Davies
• Communities Secretary – John Cruddas
• Transport Secretary – Shaun Woodward
• Culture Secretary – Glenda Jackson
• Olympics Minister – Kate Hoey
• Leader of the House of Commons – Chris Bryant
• Party Chairman – (out of sight but highly effective) Peter Mandelson

Cranmer goes on to argue that as part of his election-winning strategy for Labour, the following people should be kept away from the media as voters dislike and/or distrust them: Gordon Brown, Alastair Darling, Harriet Harman, Patricia Hewitt, Dawn Primorolo, Keith Vaz, Ed Balls, Ed and David Miliband, Goeff Hoon, Jacqui Smith, and sundry lords (but especially Ahmed).

Pure fantasy all this of course. It's never going to happen but its a bit of fun nevertheless.

To my mind the Tories would still triumph at the next general election but the contest would be much closer if Cameron had to face Cranmer's Labour team rather than Brown's, and the Tories certainly wouldn't be 20 points ahead in the polls!

A general election defeat might be a good thing for Labour - it is in desperate need of clearing out the dead wood that litters the government benches.

Will Labour leadership speculation start again?

Gordon Brown's second bounce - his perverse economic bounce - has come to crashing, thudding halt. This will be his last bounce.

As one can see from the figures below, taken from the excellent UK Polling Report website run by Anthony Wells, the Tories have regained double digit leads in surveys by all of the pollsters and are also above the psychologically important 40 percent mark.

It is not quite as bad for Brown and Labour as it was last summer but it is still pretty awful pointing to an outright Conservative victory at the next general election. What is more, it is likely the polls will continue to get worse for Brown.

More...

It is clear that nothing our hyperactive Prime Minister does is having the desired effect of making the recession shorter and shallower. Voters who seemingly started to give Brown the benefit of doubt before Christmas have since concluded that far from "saving the world," he hasn't even saved Britain. Brown is the "achieve nothing" Prime Minister.

Consequently, some are speculating that given Labour's dire polling and the worsening economic situation, the fun and games of last summer with all the leadership speculation will return with a vengeance.

I don't think this will happen.

Just as Brown had his chance to win an election back in Autumn 2007, the Parliamentary Labour Party had their chance to oust Brown last summer. As usual, the party bottled it and failed to knife a leader who will lead them to a heavy electoral defeat in 2010.

The Labour Party has made their bed and will have to lie in it. There is not time to change leader and in any case the public would punish them for naval gazing if they engaged in an act of regicide at a time of recession which is likely to prove the worst since the Second World War. Brown is therefore safe.

It would seem that Bottler Brown and the Bottler Labour Party deserve one another... and their electoral fate!

LABOUR LEADERSHIP - Is it me or is the media missing a trick?

I have phoned the Labour Party's Compliance Unit a couple of times to clarify the rules regarding Labour leadership nomination papers.

I was told that nominations will only go out to Labour MPs if 20 percent of them (i.e. 71 MPs) request nomination papers. Interestingly, and contrary to how the media is reporting the issue, I was told that at the time of their request the MPs have to make clear which candidate they are backing. The reason for this is that nomination papers do not just go out when 71 MPs request them, BUT when 71 MPs back a single candidate.

On the face of it, there is no ‘candidate’. The media have not reported the rebel MPs backing a single candidate, since the story broke just over a week ago. The reporting has been about them trying to trigger a contest in a general sense, hence all the editorials about 'rebels without a cause'.

However, as there have been Labour MPs which have requested nomination papers from the general secretary, as was confirmed to me by the legal/compliance section of the Labour Party, then surely it follows that they will have had to have nominated a candidate at the same time.

If this is true then a ‘candidate’ must exist – whether the mysterious leadership candidate is behind the plot or not.

When I put this to the Complaince Unit, I was told they couldn’t discuss what the MPs had written in their letters to the general secretary, but they admitted they were interesting questions.

Indeed, so why are the media not asking the key questions: Who are the MPs nominating? Are they nominating the same person? If so, is it organised – a 'limited' coup? And does that person know they are being nominated?

Over to you Nick Robinson, et al...