however, I've been increasingly impressed with Ed Balls during the campaign. when it first started I dismissed him as a Brownian cling-on. but, whilst he's been saying some rather aggressive things, this has been, imo, a way of inserting himself into what had become, in the press, a two-horse race.
Andy Burnham has entered simply to get a higher profile. He has demonstrated he has cabinet potential.
DM simply doens't convince me. I think he'll probably win and I want to believe that something better will emerge. But simply not being as bad as Gordon, nor as overtly corrupt as Tony isn't really good enough.
If I had a vote, and I don't, I'd probably vote 1 EdM 2 EdB 3 AB 4 DM 5 DA keep to the Fen Causeway
I think Balls is a remarkably effective politician, but then so was Stalin.
For me he is irretrievably tarnished by having swallowed the Washington Consensus entirely, and then - through being Brown's hatchet man - having done more to implement it than anyone else. I might even forgive that if he showed any signs of repentance, but rediscovering Keynesianism is simply not enough.
Next up is Miliband D.
He was always indistinguishable from the New Labour Project. Blair supports him, while Mandelson & Campbell were trying to foist him on us as part of a Lib/Lab coalition coup. But what did it for me, was firstly the fatuous 'Next Labour', followed by the completely vacuous 'Movement for Change', which might play well in the US, but here?
Next Dianne Abbott, with whom I have been impressed but who maybe still has yet to learn that there is such as thing as Solidarity, but it is not necessarily the State.
Andy Burnham at number 2. Particularly impressed with his open-minded approach, and in particular for having supported, among other things, Land Value Taxation. Maybe the next leader but one if the next one fucks up.
My number 1 is Ed Miliband who may have been IN New Labour but never OF it, I think.
He's bright, quick witted, flexible and less in need of a charisma transplant than his elder brother.
So I'm
1/ Ed M 2/ Andy B 3/ Dianne A 4/ David M 5/ Ed B "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
The thing about DA that is perplexing is that she's the most media-experienced of all the candidates, yet is the one who, by a country mile, is the worst of the 5 when justifying her candidacy in the media. It's almost like she stood as the "none of the above" candidate. keep to the Fen Causeway
