Let the games begin

Make no mistake: tomorrow’s election is just so many beginnings. The beginning of a fiscal footslog for the next government. The beginning of the Lib Dems’ struggle to maintain attention and support. The beginning, perhaps, of backroom negotiations to determine who gets to govern our country.

But, of all these beginnings, there’s one which threatens to be more violent and compulsive than all the rest: a Labour leadership contest. Over at Spectator Live, we polled CoffeeHousers on who will emerge victorious from the bloodbath, and the results are now in. David Miliband came out on top with 46 percent of the vote. Next came “other” on 16 percent (who did you have in mind? Jon Cruddas?). And then Alan Johnson (11 percent) and Peter Mandelson (9 percent). Gordon Brown and Ed Balls were both languishing back on 4 percent each.

This more or less tallies with the rumblings in Westminster. Plenty of Labour folk you bump into back Miliband the Elder – a latent level of support which has long since stopped surprising me. But we’ve got the little matter of an election first, and then there are other stumbling blocks in the Foreign Secretary’s way – like those big granite letters on the horizon, spelling UNITE.

Anyway, the fun and games start on Friday.  In the meantime, have a shot at our latest poll, on the bottom right of the Spectator Live homepage: what will be the outcome of the general election?