Andy burnham

The Labour leadership candidates have been canvassing the yummy mummies on Mumsnet and today it was Andy Burnham’s turn. Steerpike was shocked to learn from the Q&A that he has never bought mascara, nor opened a bottle of jet black ‘Just for Men’. But there was a much more damaging revelation: Burnham revealed that he doesn’t eat biscuits: 'I’m told that I have to tell you what my favourite biscuit is. But I’m afraid I’m going to depress you all by saying that I don’t have a sweet tooth and don’t eat biscuits.

After May’s general election, both Labour and the Lib Dems needed a new leader, but the contrast between their leadership elections could not be starker. Labour is in the midst of a full-blown civil war. To outsiders, it appears to be a party in total meltdown, as veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn continues to poll ahead of his more mainstream rivals. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems MPs are under new leadership, after the bloodless ascension of Tim Farron, who beat rival Norman Lamb in a relatively good-natured contest. It would be easy to dismiss the leader of eight MPs as insignificant, but it matters profoundly to Lib Dem members who want to rebuild their party.

Jeremy Corbyn is still on track to be the next Labour leader, according to leaked private polling. Tomorrow’s Daily Mirror reports that this poll puts Corbyn on 42 per cent of the first preference votes, with Yvette Cooper comes in second place on 22.6 per cent, Andy Burnham on 20 and Liz Kendall on 14. Until now, Burnham’s campaign has maintained their man is the only one who could beat Corbyn after the votes have been redistributed. But the Mirror reports that once Kendall has been knocked out and her second preferences sent to other candidates, it is a dead heat with Corbyn on 51 per cent and Cooper on 49 per cent — both figures within the margin of error.

Which factions have the most influence in the Labour leadership and deputy leadership contest? The biggest split in the party is between the pressure group Progress and those with links to trade unions. Their respective outlooks are often perceived as being mutually exclusive, and the way the leadership contest is shaping up seems to suggest that this is true. Here is how the party breaks down between those two political poles, both in the 2010 contest and the one taking place currently. Around 80 of the 232 MPs in the Parliamentary Labour Party have taken part in Progress events over the last five years according to its website.

Is Liz Kendall about to quit the Labour leadership race? The Times reports comments from Labour sources who say Kendall's time is up — given her poor showing in the recent YouGov poll and CLP nominations — and she should drop out for the good of the party. One MP told the paper ‘it may have to be Liz saying, "Look, I’m not going to win"'. Another senior Labour figure said ‘there’s quite a bit of private pressure building up on Liz.' These Labour figures do not appear to understand how the party leader is elected. The preferential Alternative Vote system means that candidates will be knocked one by one out until someone has a majority. In 2010, there were five rounds until Ed Miliband reached 50.65 per cent of the vote.

Well, look, it's Ed Miliband's fault isn't it? Thrice over in fact. First for winning the Labour leadership, then for leading the party in the way he did and, finally, for leaving the leadership so abruptly. There are many ways of measuring the funk into which Labour has plummeted but one of the best is to consider that it is now seriously believed, in some quarters anyway, that Jeremy Corbyn might not be the worst choice as leader. Believed, I mean, by sensible people of reasonably sound mind who recognise that Corbyn would be a disaster for Labour and, quite possibly, for Britain. (If you doubt that, consider whether the country benefited from Iain Duncan Smith's tenure as leader of the Conservative party. Hint: it did not.) The alternative, after all, appears to be Andy Burnham.

Relations between Andy Burnham and Harriet Harman must be disintegrating quickly. After the leadership favourite abstained during last night's vote on the Welfare Bill, Burnham attempted to his logic on the World at One. Burnham said his mind hadn’t changed and he has always been in favour of a ‘reasoned amendment’ — but he was unhappy with how the vote went: ‘Let me be clear: this was still a compromise position and it wasn’t a strong enough position for me. But I as leader firstly would have opposed this bill outright last night and would do so if elected leader.

Despite frequent claims from both sides of the political spectrum that Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn is 'unelectable', he has so far managed to win the endorsement of Unite as well as the highest number of nominations from constituency Labour parties. Could he now be on his way to an endorsement from the Guardian? Steerpike only asks after the Labour leadership hopeful was the guest of honour at today's news conference at the paper. While it was Andy Burnham's turn last week to grace the newsroom, Mr S is assured that Corbyn was the more popular of the two guests. In fact, such fan-mania hasn't been witnessed since Hollywood star Benedict Cumberbatch paid the paper a visit: https://twitter.

The four Labour leadership contenders took part in another televised hustings today, this time chaired by Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics. With just over 50 days left of this contest, the candidates are now more comfortable in each other’s company and seem much happier to attack each other. Although no one spectacularly won or failed, a few moments did provide some insight into the current state of the race. Here are five key points from today’s hustings. 1. Corbyn is comfortable running as the far left candidate. The rise of Corbynmania has overlooked that he has no frontbench experience and little idea of how to do serious politics.

In an impressive cross-party signing, the government has appointed Lord Adonis, the former Labour transport secretary, to oversee delivery of the HS2 railway. Lord Adonis gave birth to the idea of HS2 prior to the 2010 election and has remained a vocal advocate for the project ever since. The transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin said in a statement he was ‘extremely pleased’ that Adonis is joining the board of HS2 Ltd as a non-executive director. Adonis himself described HS2 as a project of ‘national significance’: ‘Patrick McLoughlin has been a powerful advocate for the project and the government has risen to the challenge of thinking about the long-term by putting in place a strong team to deliver it.

It is often said that British ambition and influence in the world are on the wane. But there can be few greater demonstrations of this than our country’s lack of attention to one of the biggest issues of our time. I am in Washington at the moment, and have been admiring how intensely the Vienna negotiations have been on the political and news agendas here. But in Britain? Obviously the British Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, has been involved in the P5+1 talks. But it would have been easy to miss the fact. There has been no meaningful criticisms from within the Conservative party to the deal which Philip Hammond has just put this country’s name to.

When Andy Burnham attended London Pride, the Labour leadership hopeful proudly sported a t-shirt which read 'never kissed a Tory'. While Mr S is yet to track down a Tory who found romance with Burnham, there are doubts that the same can be said for his wife, Marie-France van Heel. During Victoria Derbyshire's Labour leadership hustings this morning, Burnham revealed his wife's cross-party past: 'My wife and I have been together for 25 years but in the early days she was on Blind Date and she was the picker, and to add insult to injury she picked Will from Surrey, who ended up being the director of communications for the Conservative party.