Remember the Saturday when the Telegraph and Sky News both declared that Alan Johnson had won the deputy leader election
With AV LAB elections don’t always go to plan
Remember June 2007? So many Labour MPs had chickened out of doing other than nominate Brown for leader that there weren’t enough left for another candidate to go on the ballot. The result – the party got what the polling indicated was a leader who was an electoral liability – not someone who could lead them into a fourth successive general election victory.
Instead there was a hard-fought deputy race which on the day, even before the offical announcement SkyNews and the Telegraph had published that Alan Johnson had won.
As it turned out the victor, by a whisker with a margin of less than 1%, was Harriet Harman who has remained in the post since. She got it because of the way the lower preferences of the third place, John Cruddas split.
It’s reckoned in the current election is that Yvette will pick up the lion’s share of Liz Kendall’s second pref assuming she comes last. The question will then be whether this is enough to beat Burnham in the second round.