Of all Brown's potential successors, only Cruddas fills me with enthusiasm

Lupus Lungfish

How about Arthur Scargill?

Lupus Lungfish

Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well

Gwydir

"...only Cruddas fills me with enthusiasm."

My dear chap, you left out the part where you explain why. Would you, please? Or else what exactly was the point of this non-post?

Bunnykins

Is that chap in the pic Fred Pike? He'd make quite a good choice.

Hawkeye

I would much prefer it if Gordon Brown was the last ever leader of the Labour party.

If there had to be another Labour leader then I would choose Hattie to ensure that Labour stayed unelectable.

Sorry Rod - I don't want them back in. Ever.

Having said that, it is obvious that at some point in the future the tories will become tired and need time to reconsider their positions and policies so some form of opposition is necessary. One party states are good for no one.

The Labour party in its current form is simply too incompetent and dangerous to re-elect.

Hawkeye

O/T

Actually, a question springs to mind - one for Rod given his previous job as an editor on the Today programme.

Having watched Gordon's inglorious interviews and the attacks on the media earlier today, what is the journalists perspective from here on in? How will the news rooms react? If you where still in the R4 newsroom and Gordon had treated a Today presenter like he treated Adam Boulton, what would be the tone of subsequent interviews?

Would stories be slanted more against Labour than otherwise?

GaryO

Get ready for the "Toffs Parade" that will be the Tory government - scolding and berating us for at least the next four years.

How about Andy Burnham though? The man seems to know his business and is articulate, presentable and middle of the road. However, this is purely academic, as I will not be voting at the next general election. Name me a party that promises to keep Turkey out of EU, gives us a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty; curtails, nay stops, further immigration until we reach near full employment (yes, I know the business about matching skills and jobs, but still, you know what I mean) and promises to close all faith schools and I will vote for them with my eyes closed.

Fergus Pickering

We lefties! Considering your views on immigrant muslims, with which I heartily concur, on feminism, on, hell on almost anything, I doubt if the Labour Party would accept you naked on a platter with a punch of Rosemary in your mouth. Hell, Rod, get real. You haven't been a leftuie since God knows when. You are, like me, a philosophical anarchist wedded to the stirring up of confusion and mayhem among the chattering classes. And go to it! Cruddas? Who's Cruddas.

startledcod

He doesn’t appear in any polls, he isn’t even in the running but maybe, just maybe, Alistair Darling is the man to replace GB. He’s calm, he’s sensible, he’s realistic, he appears honest. We know that he has been way ahead of GB in being (a little bit) honest about the s**t.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Alistair Darling for PM.

In2minds

Nulabour nu leader? People laughed when Ed Balls gave us - Post neoclassical endogenous growth theory

Well the title Cuddas's Ph.D is -

An analysis of value theory, the sphere of production and contemporary approaches to the re-organisation of workplace relations

Funny or what?

James Delingpole

Rod, I find your comments regarding bilharzia highly offensive. I myself have suffered from bilharzia - or schistosomiasis, as we hypochondriacs also lovingly call it - and though it can indeed involve unpleasant symptoms like bleeding in the urine, lethargy, pain and general internal rotting, plus a diagnostic test which involves having a metal, willy-like object shoved up your bottom to take a tissue sample via "rectal snip", I can assure it isn't half as unpleasant as any of the contenders for the Labour leadership.

John RH

Rod - I'm bemused. I love a maverick - and since Bron's untimely demise you have helped fill the gap. Yet your views are decidedly rightish/ libertarian/ small state. You do not fit easily into the "bossy" "from above", "Statist", "Vote For me And I'll Spend Your Money" Labour Party. Perhaps one day you will explain to those ex Comrades why it is you still see yourself as a lefty. I understand your dismay at Cameron et al - but at least they seem to be firing on more than one cylinder and have substantially more intellectual BHP than the equivalent 1 cylinder, side valve, with a cracked block, and severly high maintenance inefficient, Labour party. I like your blog by the way.

Simon Denis

Just to second John RH's point, come off it - you're no more left wing than Nigel Lawson - and all the better for that. The one lonely strand of leftery to which you seem to cling is an opposition to that picturesque form of pest control known as fox hunting, a cause in which Anne Widdecomb - hardly Rosa Luxemburg - would join you. In your Sunday Times evisceration of Batty Hatty Selfharm's equality agenda, you gave an impeccably classical liberal analysis of the so-called "pay gap". For ages, you've been suggesting that mass immigration keeps wages unpalatably low. Are you seriously suggesting that Cruddas or Burnham would sympathise with this very fair point? Would they hell! At most, you strike me as an old Dickensian radical - a noisy, impudent, ingenious, free booting, hedonist with a sentimental streak and a suspicion of flummery. In my book, for what it's worth, that makes you a sort of Liberal on the right. Why not admit it?

Simon Stephenson

Well I think it's important that we have a functioning party of the left, because politics is about choice, about allocation of scarce resources, and society benefits from the full consideration of the arguments of talented people from all parts of the political spectrum.

That having been said, what I think is also important is that political debate is conducted with scrupulous intellectual honesty, so that acceptable rhetoric and hyperbole are clearly distinguished from unacceptable misrepresentation and deceit.

So for the next Labour leader, I would be looking for someone within the ranks who also believes that intellectual honesty is paramount. And in a party whose maxim seems to have been "Never tell the truth, because a lie is always better" it's quite difficult to find someone who fits the bill. In fact, no one springs to mind at all.

Thomas Cussans

Rod!

They are all, without exception, cretinous, clod-like and loathesome.

There is nothing more to be said.

rod seacole liddle

Have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed these responses, especially from my friend James and Mr Cussans.

"About as left wing as Nigel Lawson" - terrific.

simon s

Crappas has a nice flat in the 'Golden Crescent' which we've paid for. And his son attends a posh Catholic 'grammar school by other means' in the Crescent. Even though he believes that schools in Daghenham should support 'working class values'. Crapass is a smug joker.

Gauloise Smoker

Lupus - I was going to say the same thing - surely Arthur Scargill/Cruddas would be a dream ticket.
Good old trendy Rod. Let me entertain you whilst we take the non partisan social road.
Hell, I listen to the Rolling Stones and drink beer and wear a bit of eyeliner and worrying about how to bring the proles up to my level is a mark of my caring, common sense outlook.
Come on people, Love me!! Be like me!! It's much easier and people like you as you are always nice and sociable.

Paul.

GaryO- Perhaps move to Buckingham?

Lupus

Gauloise Smoker- Sounds like you've had a long night loafing around the bars of the Quartier Pigalle!

rod seacole-liddle

Gauloise - aside from the gauloise, are you on some form of medication?

Ed P

Consider Ed Milliband (obviously not "banana" David)

Maggie

Since you recommended him I've been paying close attention to the lacklustre performances of Jon Cruddas. As far as I can see he's a charisma-free zone but his pedestrian views and leaden delivery might appeal if you find Gordon Brown too exhilaratingly whizzy.

workie ticket

Harman is right. She should lead labour into the next election accompanied with quality acts like Estelle morris and Margaret Becket (is Margaret Hodge still alive?). They would be such a match for Cameron and Osbourne those doughty, principled men of steel. What a battle that would be and what a great feeling to know that, whoever won, the country would be in such great hands.

daniel maris

Straw? You mean the bloke who let the Iranians get started on their nuclear bomb project while he engaged in fruitless mock "negotiations" with the wily Persians? Hardly leadership stuff.

Cruddas is a soundbite merchant. Hasn't got an idea in his head.

Harman's head is full of nonsense, dangerous nonsense.

Charles Clarke I think is about the only one I would run with. Mandelson is a very smooth operator.

My problem with Labour overall is that they have built a constituency based on mass immigration and welfare dependency - two trends which have the potential to damage or even destroy our society.

Iceman

I reckon Labour ought to go for Ken Dodd. The country would remain in the mess they got us into, but we would laugh alot.

Peter Arctic

I agree. At least Cruddas seems to stand for something vaguely left of centre.

But it won't really matter. The Tories are nailed on for at least two terms, probably three, maybe four.

Liddle blog historian.

Classic thread this one!