Analysis of the shadow cabinet candidates' Labour leader preferences reveals that Ed Miliband cannot rely on automatic support for his leadership. Of the 49 MPs standing for the shadow cabinet, 14 did not put down any preference for the Labour leader.
Analysis of the shadow cabinet candidates’ Labour leader preferences reveals that Ed Miliband cannot rely on automatic support for his leadership. Of the 49 MPs standing for the shadow cabinet, 14 did not put down any preference for the Labour leader.
David Miliband’s slight victory in the PLP (53% to 47%) is significantly magnified among shadow cabinet candidates. He gained 25 of their first preferences, compared to 12 for Ed Miliband, 9 for Ed Balls, 2 for Andy Burnham and 1 for Diane Abbott. The 14 candidates who didn’t express a preference for the new leader include Ben Bradshaw, Caroline Flint, Tom Harris, and Jim Murphy.
The older Miliband was also the choice of the New Labour establishment. Of the 14 ex-cabinet ministers competing for election, 7 picked Mili-D as first choice, with 4 (Hilary Benn, John Denham, Stephen Timms and Peter Hain) plumping for Mili-E.
Unless Ed M’s backers have a clean sweep in the shadow cabinet election, he will not have been the first choice pick for the majority of the shadow cabinet. While his brother’s decision to move to the backbenches reduces the likelihood of factionalism emerging, Ed Balls retains a powerful base of support amongst the 49 candidates – 18 put Balls ahead of Ed M.
In total, though, Mili-E did achieve 36 votes of varying preference from his potential shadow cabinet. And he can take solace from the fact that the sole candidate for Chief Whip – Rosie Winterton – pledged her first preference to him.
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12 Responses to “Ed M not the natural choice of shadow cabinet candidates”
Judy Smith
RT @leftfootfwd: Ed M not the natural choice of shadow cabinet candidates http://bit.ly/9y8jqO > no surprise – end of a B-B era that's all
Dr. Shibley Rahman
I (sort of) know what you’re getting at, but the fundamental issue is that David Miliband got substantial backing from Labour MPs. As Andrew Rawnsley alluded to last night on “This Week”, there was a sense early on in the leadership contest that David Miliband was a nature heir to both Brown and Blair.
Nice article though.
Dr Shibley Rahman
(@shibleylondon)
Hopi Sen
The text is a little unclear. I don’t think any of the Shad candidates didn’t vote, so I assume you mean that some candiadtes didn’t put Ed M as their 2nd, 3rd or 4th choice candidate.
In which case it isn’t that interesting, as a significant minority of both Ed and David supporters put in no transfers at all, presumably in expectaition they wouldn’t count.
the first preferences are important, as they may well be used as some sort of guide to the mood of PLP.
Mike
Looking from the figures on the Labour party website, a good number of MPs who voted for David Miliband put Ed as their second. Which hardly indicates that they can’t work with him, even if he wasn’t their first choice.
Chris
This will only become a problem if things go tits up big time.