Can Labour put up any credible, electable leader from its MPs? If so, who? Will they need to parachute someone into a constituency to have any credibility?

Chuka Umunna for me. Modern, Obama-eque and a far more presentable person than Milliband.

Andy Burnham. Anyone but Yvette Cooper, too close to Balls

Unelectable at the present time, IMO.

Why?

Burnham I like but I am not sure he is forceful enough. Yvette Cooper would be a joke candidate. If Ed M did not look like a leader (he didn't!) then she certainly does not!

Sadly, IMO there are no true labour politicians anymore, and the same goes the majority of other party's.

All this talk of "aspiration" etc. is fine and dandy and the fear of losing anything is well founded. Add to that the playground notion of 'its my ball and if you don't play to my rules I'm taking it home" attitude and you get the situation we are in today.

A country scared to "think outside the box", where right and privilege are seen as ok but this cannot be permitted at the lower end of society because they may get something they don't deserve and "I" don't want to pay for it mentality.

Strange then that same attitudes are not applicable to the big spongers off the state called the monarchy.

A country where the "big bad unions" who fight for their members "aspirations" are condemned yet the other "unions" like the 1922 committee, the Nation Farmers UNION, the Freight Transport Association, the Law society, the BMA etc., etc, who have the "governments" ear and fight for their members (by the way some of these "unions" are CLOSED SHOPS!!!) are not seen as bad.

Strange isn't it.

I am a believer in you work for what you get, and that means for "daddies heirs" to take over a business/ancestry without putting the effort in is wrong, yet this is seen as normal. There are loads of businesses that have gone to the wall once the "heirs" have taken over yet the businesses had the people who could/should have taken the business forward but the system makes it difficult to give them the opportunity.

Cameron has stated his "one nation" philosophy" and then shot himself in the foot immediately by keeping IDS and Gove in the government.

The Labour need to look for a leader who aspire to be PM and also know what fairness means. That is the key to success. The tries create a divided nation but play on fear as their chief weapon. HONESTY AND TRUTH need to be the main weapons, and if that means looking inward and thinking "outside the box" then that is what the labour party need but one thing is definite, people who have only done "political study" and never been in business, care etc. are not the politicians this country needs.

We live in interesting times, and the next couple of years will be the most interesting indeed.

I voted for Burnham for leader last time and looks like I will do so again.

Too close to the Unions

Got to be Dianne Abbott, surely............?

Of those mentioned so far, here's my take:

Yvette Cooper - too close to Ed Balls, mention of him would be continuous and keep dragging her back

Chuka Umunna - personable enough, good communicator but he'll be subjected to closet racism in the same way that Miliband suffered closet anti-semitism

Andy Burnham - good orator, cheeky chappy but will always be saddled with "North Staffs killing 1200 people"

Liz Kendall - intelligent, excellent orator. About the only thing the Wail will find wrong is that she's not married and her partner is a comedian

None of them get me excited but of the lot, I'd go for Kendall

I'm sure "New" New Labour will follow what's been its traditional policy since Harold Wilson's days of jumping further to the right with each successive iteration whilst further selling out its core principles. It's now so far from the Labour Party of the post-war years it might as well drop the appellation "Labour" altogether.

The truth of the matter is that even at the height of its ideological fervour - Labour was always a half-hearted at attempt at socialism. If anything the party was created as a buffer against true socialism breaking out in Britain with the creation of the NHS serving as a payoff to the electorate for the sufferings of two savage wars.

I mean, people talk about Blair selling the party down the river - but Harold Wilson did as much damage if not more so.

I might not agree with Peter O'Borne's politics - but he's absolutely correct in saying there are no longer any real divisions between Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems. There exists only one party in Westminster (excluding the SNP for the time being) which has multiple factions. They might bicker and scheme and war against each other - but should the system as a whole be threatened (such as happened during MP's expenses) they'll immediately coalesce into a tight group, raise their shields and like a Roman turtle advancing determinedly toward a jeering band of rock-hurling Visigoths they'll wipe the obnoxious, upstart proles from the battlefield.

Blair was arguably the first all-out political opportunist (and perhaps still the best example) - but Cameron, Clegg and Milliband are all his spiritual progeny to some lesser or greater extent.

Not that they have much freedom of self-determination. We live in a global marketplace dominated by enormous multi-national conglomerates, super-power and approaching-super-power states etc. all of whose influence borders upon the unimaginable by comparison.

Instead of wielding comprehensive and conspicuous real-world power as prime ministers during the days of the British Empire (and immediately in the wake of WWII) once did - today's incarnations are little more the middle-managers whose job it is to take the fall for the true architects of power (international banking, trans-national corporations, defence contractors, big oil etc.)

Once their term in office is concluded they are handsomely rewarded with lucrative positions on the boards of several corporations (even John Major managed to get himself onto the board of the Carlyle Group) and they largely disappear from view. Which is surely antithetical to democracy since an ex-prime minister is arguably the best person possible to provide the electorate with experienced analysis and criticism of those in power.

The fourth estate gave the Tories a pretty easy time of it last term. But you can bet they'll be after Cameron like salivating dogs chasing the hare at Belle Vue this. Oh the self-righteousness will be cranked up to maximum (especially in the Guardian) as Tory cuts bite deep. After all, SOMEONE must stand up for the people ( ). But the reality is (whether they know it or not) they are merely baiting the electorate for the absolute necessity of voting Labour next time around. And so the carnival just keeps rollin' on.

You don't read much do you.

Isn't Cameron too close to his unions?

The 'Labour' Party are so far removed from their supposed core vote they should be sued for misrepresentation. I predict that every potential leadership candidate will try and move the party even further to the right in the illusion that this is why they are losing votes. As supposedly proven in several surveys immigration adds a net economic positive to the country as a whole BUT the bottom 20% end up WORSE OFF. That's why IMO a lot of traditional Labour voter who tend to lives in a micro-bubble are turning to UKIP. They don't fully understand how a global economy functions but they have enough common sense to realise that more competition for low paid jobs drives down wages even further.

Scotland's rejection of U.K pro-austerity parties shows that the working classes want a turn to the LEFT. Unfortunately Labour sold their souls to the City of London and the banksters in charge years ago and they cannot see that pandering to these financial fraudsters is slowly killing the country.

I'm not all that well up on politics, so don't understand this. One of the most common criticisms of Milliband's Labour was that his manifesto was too far left and ignored the centre-left. You seem to be encouraging them to do exactly what they already did?