With Wendy's move on and in the aftermath of Glasgow East, Scottish Labour's attention will shift this week to the election of a new leader of Labour in the Scottish Parliament.

http://thearmchairsocialist.blogspot.com/2008/07/scottish-labour-leadership-in-context.html

After Peter Hain's resignation, the NEC is likely to consider spending caps in internal elections. But there is no need at all for significant sums of money to be raised or spent in Labour party elections. I suggest a £500 cap on any donations, and the very lowest overall spending limits that are practicable. We would have better election contests and money saved could be spent on real politics.

Still , a winner is a winner. Well done Gordon, well done Harriet. Nearly there Alan. Only 0.8% short. Overall, a good result for the Labour Party and the affiliate trade unions (Particularly UNISON Labour Link – who I think can show that they can deliver, not enough this time obviously, however we need to build on how we communicate with our Labour Link members). I am convinced that Gordon and Harriet will be a winning team for Labour.

UNISON website explains how and why the elected UNISON Labour Link national representatives voted to support Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson

The LabOUR Commission has devised a simple checklist for each of the candidates covering the 10-point plan in its Interim Report 2007. I have contacted each candidate to ask if s/he would fill it in to inform members about prospects for party reform under their leadership. In the light of difficulties evidenced in the Newsnight hustings obtaining single word replies, I am not optimistic. But wouldn't it be refreshing, if the old cynic in me was confounded, even if the answers did not reflect two years of deliberation and evidenced based research? 

The Newsnight deputy leadership hustings has surely turned this election upside down or are we at TMP getting a bit too excited!?

Interesting – just noticed unionfutures report that Islington North CLP "arguably a contender for the leftist CLP in the UK", whose MP Jeremy Corbyn nominated and campaigned for McDonnell. Voted at an “all members” meeting on Thursday to endorse the nomination of Brown for Leader and to nominate Harriet Harman as deputy Leader

Interesting results so far. It appears that McDonnell(I'm going to try to be as objective as possible, probably not successfully) is struggling to get 45 nominations. Which I find fascinating. If the Hard-ish Left cannot even get 12.5% of PLP nominations (and I think that each MP can actually nominate up to 3 candidates) then I think we may be seeing something momentous happening. This could be Blair's lasting legacy to the Party?