The Brothers, The Balls, The Dark Horse and Diane Abbott...

Clearly my gifts for political commentary haven't waned during this extremely busy and stressful week, as I was able to give the kiss of death to John McDonnell (see yesterday's blog) by endorsing his campaign. This morning he withdrew from the contest to allow Diane Abbott (never quite sure how many double letters there are in that name... although I feel slightly better in the knowledge that neither does David Milliband and he endorsed her campaign, so...) onto the ballot. Now, this is a highly honourable and admirable act allowing Abbbbotttt to receive the required number of nominations and actually creating a fairly diverse ticket (a change from the usual 'should it be this middle-aged, public schoolboy or this one?' mentality of pretty much all other leadership elections in living memory).

Can Abbbbbbotttttt actually win though? Surely she's too cosy on the sofa next to Portillo on BBC's This Week? Well, she ticks a good number of boxes actually. Many of the leadership candidates have recognised the need for a revamp of the party, perhaps turning back to its roots and Diannne has long been a detractor of New Labour and it's more central policies. Perhaps picking the first black, female MP elected to parliament to be the first black, female party leader could be a masterstroke, reflecting genuine change instead of the glossy plastic, upper class change that half of the country was apparently swindled into in May. At this point however, it does seem more likely that the members, trade unionists, MEPs and MPs will opt for the 'safe pair of hands' offered by one of the Millibands, who are neither smokers, jokers or midnight tokers like their forgotten brother Steve (musical joke... oo ra).

This is all conjecture naturally. I'm in no way qualified to give informed, unbiased opinions, but hey, Nick Robinson's got away with it for all these years, hasn't he...