Photo: Max Nash/AFP/Getty Images
Brother Liddle says that Jon Cruddas is the only one of Gordon Brown’s potential successors that gives him any great hope for the future of the Labour party. And given the competition that may not be so very surprising. But if the party conference this week has proved anything, it’s that one of the reasons Brown remains leader is that he is by far and away and for all his faults the most substantial figure in the party.
Still, Labour will, as things stand now, need a new leader next summer. That, actually, is the lesser of the party’s two major problems. Before it decides what sort of leader it wants, Labour needs to decide what sort of party it wants to be. That, however, is a discussion that takes time and demands a period of quiet reflection.
Defeated parties tend to look to the “next generation” when it comes to choosing a successor to the defeated incumbent.
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