The LAB selectorate polls don’t always get it right – remember this from June 2007

The LAB selectorate polls don’t always get it right – remember this from June 2007

Both the Telegraph and Sky wrongly announced that Alan Johnson had won the deputy race

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. The video above shows how shocked people were.

    The certainty from the commentariat that it was Johnson was the same as Corbyn’s inevitable victory is viewed now

As it turned out the victor, by a whisker with a margin of less than 1%, was Harriet Harman who remained in the post until September last year. She got it because of the way the lower preferences of the third place, John Cruddas split.

My betting was on Harman at 9/1 following Don Brind’s strong recommendation to me which I’d posted.

Mike Smithson



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