Last day of voting
Supporters of each of the five candidates for the Labour leadership are making a last-ditch effort to secure votes before polling closes. MPs, MEPs and party members have until 5pm to cast their ballots, and votes are expected to be cast electronically via the Labour website right up until the last minute. Voting for members of trade unions and affiliated organisations closed on Tuesday. Polls suggest that shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband had closed the gap on brother David as the race came to the wire. But bookmakers Ladbrokes still made shadow foreign secretary David 1-2 favourite on Tuesday night, ahead of his younger brother on 6-4. – The Press Association
Today voting ends in Labour’s leadership contest. Mirror readers who are Labour members have until 5pm to vote. It takes just a minute online. I will be a leader who will make sure that Labour will again be a party which stands up for the hard-working majority in Britain. We all know what happened under 18 years of Tory rule. And just look at what they’ve done in their first few weeks – hiked VAT to 20%, slashed Tax Credits, frozen Child Benefit, threatened Winter Fuel Payments, axed new school buildings. Cameron promised compassionate Conservatism, but is showing that for the majority there is no such thing. – Ed Miliband, The Mirror
Left Ed, Right Ed
According to his critics, he’s a dangerous left-wing radical who, if he ever became prime minister, would take Britain back to the Socialist 1970s. According to his supporters, he’s the man who will lead Labour away from Blairism and reconnect the party with its core supporters and traditional values. Both his detractors and supporters are in agreement that Ed Miliband – who could well be Labour leader when the results of the party ballot are revealed this weekend – is the candidate for ‘change’. Miliband himself has as his campaign slogan: ‘Call for Change’. But if we look beyond the rhetoric and the sound-bites, a very different picture emerges. The reality is that Ed Miliband is not so much the ‘change’ candidate, but a politician who will deliver more of the same neo-liberal policies that both Conservative and Labour governments have followed over the past 30 years. – The First Post
Who’ll win what?
What would be the worst result for Labour in the leadership election? Ed Miliband loses in the MP and, more narrowly, the constituency sections of the electoral college but trumps his elder brother David by sweeping the affiliates section. The unions, particularly Unite, have done Ed proud by getting round a ban on leaflets in the ballot envelope by surrounding the ballot envelope with pro-Mili Junior endorsements. It’s an individual ballot. Only votes cast count. Yet Ed Mili would be portrayed as the union’s man, lacking a mandate from the Parliamentary Labour Party. – The Mirror
#shadcab10
Former Labour cabinet ministers face competing against virtual unknowns from the party ranks for seats on the shadow cabinet in a contest with the potential for some humiliating results. Among the MPs seeking their colleagues’ votes in the contest, which kicks off on Sunday, are some who are far from household names. They include Roberta Blackman-Woods, Eric Joyce, Barry Gardiner, Stephen Twigg and Chris Leslie, none of whom has held ministerial rank in the past. The latter two only reappeared in the Commons this May, having lost their seats in previous general elections. – The FT
Tags: affiliates, David Miliband, Ed Miliband, members, MPs, Shadow Cabinet
RE: #shadcab10 – Stephen Twigg and Chris Leslie were Ministers prior to 2005.