Stuart Bruce

My ballot paper(s) for the Labour leadership election have finally arrived, but I still can’t decide how to vote.

My first preference is easy: Andy Burnham. In terms of how good they will be for the future of the Labour Party and the country, none of them are even half as good as Andy.

Andy is the candidate who best represents the vast majority of people in this country. He is the only candidate who can truly understand and has appeal to Labour’s ‘traditional’ core vote, but also to the people who decide election – that elusive ‘middle class’ swing vote.

He is the only candidate who represents the future and not the past.

Now for my second preference. Let’s start with the two candidates who I believe would be an absolute disaster for the Labour Party and consign us to electoral oblivion, not just for the next election, but potentially for ever.

Diane Abbott offers the party very little. Certainly she has enlivened the debate, but you can’t see her as a potential leader. She’s has 20+ years as a backbencher where she could have demonstrated her ability. She hasn’t. For that reason Diane, you’re out.

David Miliband. Out of the five contenders David would be the worst possible winner. The fact that he has a chance is what makes him so damned dangerous. He would spell electoral oblivion. He has totally failed to display any reasonable vision for the future of our party.

During the campaign I’ve also had a good few opportunities to see all five of the candidates up close in the ‘green room’ and mingling with members at numerous hustings. The problem is that David doesn’t strike me as a person I could ever like or trust. His whole body language, actual language and demeanour reeks of arrogance and contempt. He might represent a North East seat and have once live as a tiny child in Leeds, but his heart and mind is still stuck firmly in Primrose Hill. He doesn’t really understand the 90% of the UK outside of metropolitan London (I doubt he even understands most of inner-city multi-cultural London).

I don’t see any genuine passion or compassion, for him it’s simply the next career step in his great political game. The Labour Party is too important to the future of the people of Britain to let David break it.

David is seen as the Blairite candiate, and many people see me as more Blairite than Brownite (I see myself simply as true Labour), so he should be my natural choice. And indeed early on David was my second preference, until I realised how truly disastrous he really would be.

All David offers us is all of the worst of New Labour, with none of the best of New Labour. David, you’re no Tony Blair.

That leaves me with Ed and Ed.

Ed Balls. Ed B started as the candidate who I thought never, ever. But… during the campaign he’s the candidate, after Andy, who has impressed me the most. Ed B has fought a brilliant campaign. He’s not been afraid to tell it like it is and has landed some brilliant blows on the Condem coalition. Ed B and Andy have been the only two contenders to focus their attack on this despicable government, the brothers Miliband spending far much time attacking each other and other candidates.

Based on his performance during the campaign then Ed Balls would be my second preference. But, and this is a huge but, can and should Labour Party members forgive him for his behaviour over the last few years? I’m not sure we should yet. Perhaps it might be better to see Ed B retire to the sidelines for a while and not take one of the big shadow cabinet jobs, but to take a lead in touring the country talking to members to make sure that Labour develops new policies that are consistent with our values and the needs of the country. Ed might not be our next leader, but who knows after that. If David wins then he won’t last more than one term, if that, and whatever is left of the party will need someone to try and save it from David’s destruction. That might be Ed Balls.

Finally Ed Miliband. Ed M is an enigma. If he’s truly ‘Red Ed’ and a slave to the unions as the right wing press would have us believe then he shouldn’t appeal to me at all. The unions are vital partners in the Labour Party, they don’t own it or control it. I think the donations he’s received from the unions to attempt to ‘buy’ the leadership are disgraceful. But, I can see that when it was offered he had to take it, you need it to win it. It’s not Ed’s fault that this contest is so unfair.

His main flaw is the same as brother David, he doesn’t really understand the real world and is stuck within the mindset of the Primrose Hill London elite. I heard Ed M give a hustings answer about buses, which he tried to illustrate with an example from his constituency. But all it did is illustrate his extremely flaky grasp of what life really is like for most people. There is no way Andy or Ed Balls would have been so out of touch with local constituency issues. Where Ed M is better than David is that at least he appears to be partially ‘human’ – I’ve heard it quipped that Ed M could be “David’s representative on earth”.

Ed M has also been the candidate that has been fastest to ‘appropriate’ other candidates ideas and lines. He quite clearly will do anything to win. And that perhaps is one of his strengths. Under the Condems Britain is going to hell and we need a leader who will win. Perhaps Ed is that person.

So supporters of Ed Balls and Ed Milliband, here’s your chance – pitch me as to why I should give my second preference to your man.