As some of our readers have pointed out, there’s another Labour leadership contest going on. Has the influx of left-leaning members affected the race to become Labour’s London mayoral candidate? George Eaton in the New Statesman suspects so.
That’s it for today, at least in terms of above the line. Thanks for all your comments and contributions.
As a few readers below the line have pointed out, Labour MP Simon Danczuk, who has been calling for the leadership election to be halted, has expanded on his comments about what would happen if Corbyn were to win.
As this story in the Independent reports, Danczuk told LBC radio this morning: “Am I going to put up with some crazy left wing policies that he is putting forward and traipse through the voting lobby to support him? It’s not going to happen is it? So I would give him about twelve months if he does become leader.”
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It’s always interesting to look at our politics from the outside. Last week I attempted to write about Jeremy Corbyn for our international audience. I was reminded of it by this piece in the New York Times, which attempts to explain him to their readers. It points out Corbyn, were he to win, “would be the first bearded party leader since Keir Hardie in 1908.”
Mr. Corbyn was persuaded to put up his hand for the party leadership role to “widen the debate,” and he got the required 35 nominations from Labour members of Parliament only at the last minute, when some of them decided to throw a bone to the party’s activists.
But Mr. Corbyn has shown himself to be fluent, articulate and sincere, a sharp contrast with his two main competitors, who seem eager not to offend. Some Americans compare him, in ideology and age, to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a presidential hopeful, but Mr. Corbyn now seems likely to win.
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Jeremy Corbyn spoke at a well-attended rally in Cardiff last night. So well attended that two of our commenters were there. Below are their personal takes on the event and the implications of Corbyn’s rise.
I was there too. Great turnout, with a diverse range of people and ages. A room full of such deranged & dangerous militants such as 70 year old married couples, ex-Remploy workers and shopkeepers.
There was a sense of excitement & hope that I have not seen in politics for decades. Yes, Corbyn may not win in 2020, as he doesn't just have to fight the Tories & media, but those in Labour who feel they have the right to own the party as a Blairite religious cult.
My worry is that a decent and committed man will be stitched up by a combination of these vested interests. He will only have 2 choices:
1) Stay and fight inside Labour, but eventually be politically rinsed as a 'nearly man'.
2) Leave the party and build a huge socialist alliance of Greens, trade unions, students and NHS parties.
Either way, he can't turn back now, and judging from last night by the hope he instills in people who finally have somebody on their side, he will take hundreds of thousands of people with him. Labour should be worried.
Here’s our story on the Labour leadership registration deadline extension.
The deadline to register as a Labour supporter in order to vote in the leadership election was supposed to be at midday, which is approximately now (ish).
It’s been extended to 3pm.
If you are trying to register as a supporter and are experiencing difficulties, the deadline has been extended to 3pm if you want to vote.
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) August 12, 2015
Anne Perkins on our opinion pages has given her take on the current state of the Labour leadership contest. It begins:
Another Labour backbencher is calling for a halt to the leadership contest. Party loyalists could be forgiven for wondering at what point, exactly, the party’s opponents were passed a loaded pistol while a red rose was plastered over the concentric circles on the target? Who thought it would be a good idea, just as normal political life finally sinks into a persistent vegetative state, to subcontract the choice of Labour leader to a crowdsourcing exercise?
Here’s the thing. It is a good idea. It’s absolutely the right direction of travel. The problem is that it demands a different kind of politics – and the politicians haven’t yet grasped what that is.
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We’re just over half an hour away from the deadline for registering to vote in the Labour leadership contest, and the party has reiterated that it has a “robust” verification process to ensure that registered supporters are genuine Labour sympathisers.
If you’re reading this, have registered to vote, and are worried that you may be rejected, we’d be interested in hearing from you, as we already have from a number of readers. We have a form here, or you can email me on james.walsh@theguardian.com
Andrew is not writing his usual Politics Live blog during summer recess but, as an alternative, here’s Politics Live: readers’ edition. It’s intended to be a place where you can catch up with the latest news and find links to good politics blogs and articles on the web.
Please feel free to use this as somewhere you can comment on any of the day’s political stories - just as you do during the daily blog. It would be particularly useful for readers to flag up new material in the comments - breaking news or blogposts or tweets that are worth passing on because someone is going to find them interesting.
The Labour leadership election story rumbles on. Our lead politics story this morning is each of the four candidate’s campaign teams have been called in for a meeting at party headquarters, in order to put a stop to complaints in some quarters about the credibility of the contest.
Angles on this or on any of today’s breaking politics news? Share them, along with links and arguments below the line.
All today’s Guardian politics stories are here and all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today’s paper, are here.ach of the candidates, today is the turn of Jeremy Corbyn.
Angles on this or on any of today’s breaking politics news? Share them, along with links and arguments below the line.
All today’s Guardian politics stories are here and all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today’s paper, are here.
I went to the Corbyn rally in Cardiff last night.
For a supposedly unelectable maverick, he did pretty well. 1000 people in a hotel room hanging on every word. Cardiff, like Wales, isn't exclusively Labour.
Yes, there were plenty of lefties there, myself included. But the impression I left the room with was this. Here is an experienced politician talking about challenging the damaging economic narrative of the last decade, putting young people into work and taking on tax evaders. People are flocking to this because it's clearly a start to solving our country's many social and economic problems. People who have been told for decades that the only way to personal prosperity is to look down on people who haven't achieved financial parity with you, that poverty is a sin and that only voting for centre-right politics can guarantee the rise in your house price.
Jeremy alluded to the Big Society in his speech last night, and I think he's right, this is what happens when people get together to help their fellow man. The amount of young people there was especially encouraging - maybe, just maybe, the political landscape in this country is finally going to change.