Talk:2007 Labour Party leadership election (UK)

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Only one nominated candidate. McDonnell not a candidate[edit]

This is totally wrong, surely? John McDonnell (or whatever he's called) didn't stand in the election, because he wasn't nominated. It's therefore wrong to list him as a nominated candidate with the picture box thing in the top right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 13th Law Lord (talk • contribs) 18:37, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, only one candidate was validly nominated for this position, Gordon Brown. The infobox as it stands is misleading and makes it look like there was a vote between Brown and McDonnell when no such vote took place. Dergraaf (talk) 17:22, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Citation[edit]

I am currently working to find citations for all possible and confirmed candidates. Seivad 15:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prod[edit]

Please do not prod this article, if you believe it should be deleted then create a proper AfD debate so it can be discussed.

As I have said before, the coverage of this election does not violate WP:CB in my opinion, as in concentrates on current facts, and is actually happening at the moment, it is vital that this is covered on Wikipedia. Seivad 11:26, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Afd: Keep[edit]

Well, not happy, but I'll stick by the consensus of the deletion process which was to keep this article. The article smacks of putting together a host of predictions and crystal-balling and calling the mush of sourced quotations "an article", but that view is obviously not carried by those who voted.

If I can contribute to this article in time, of course I will do my best. doktorb wordsdeeds 22:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is a crystal ball after all[edit]

‘The 2007 Labour Party leadership election is predicted to begin before 31 May 2007’

I suppose there must have been a change in policy when I wasn’t looking. —Ian Spackman 21:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC News article quoted exactly after that does use the word predicted when referring to Labour MP's opinions, Tony Blair is committed to the 2006 Labour and TUC Conferences being the last during his time as Prime Minister and given it takes nearly 2 months to hold a leadership election in the Labour Party then the turn of July 2007 really is the latest possible, although possible he is not likely to go during the Local Election campaign as leader but then again usually the Summer months are avoided for elections because so many people are away or wanting to go away, if he stands down in June as leader then the leadership election would be in August which is High Summer, it is improbable that the party would want to go into Local and Devolved Elections that year without a national party leader, so Tony Blair is likely to resign as leader either some time between the New Year and early March or after the Local Elections in 4 May to 31 May, he may not stand down immediately as Prime Minister and allow a new leader to front the various elections in 2007 while he gets on with tying up loose ends in Westminster in which case it may be earlier in the year he goes as leader.--Lord of the Isles 00:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly something like a leadership election pre-campaign has been underway since the summer at least; and the predicted date is a plausible one. But I think that the wording of the first sentence does make it look as if this is going to be a crystal-ballish article. —Ian Spackman 12:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's what many MP's on all sides of the House of Commons and the Media have been saying for sometime, it's their predictions and as Tony Blair has not outlined any kind of timeline then what they say is prediction, as such saying it is predicted is factual correct.--Lord of the Isles 14:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chancellor of the Exchequer[edit]

It is going outside the scope of an article on the leadership to start speculating in it on who the next Chancellor of the Exchequer might be, in fact the Chancellor of the Exchequer article would be a more appropriate one to include such an article, it is important to bare in mind though that as recently as Stanley Baldwin a Prime Minister has also served also at one point as Chancellor of the Exchequer, during the war Winston Churchill also handled major departmental briefs, the Prime Minister is actually First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service by tradition and subject to royal approval can handle any departmental brief, although improbable it would be quite possible for Gordon Brown to ask the Queen to allow him to continue as Chancellor of the Exchequer and be Prime Minister simultaneously or be Prime Minister and Home Secretary.--Lord of the Isles 23:00, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's constitutionally possible but very unlikely. Baldwin is the only PM in the last 100 years to also be Chancellor - and this was only for his first three months as PM whilst he tried to find a successor (Reginald McKenna couldn't find a suitable seat in the Commons, Robert Horne and other Coalition Conservatives turned it down), plus he put the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in the Cabinet to carry most of the day to day work (there was no Chief Secretary at the time).
Off the top of my head the additional jobs PMs have held have been as follows:
Leader of the House of Lords/Commons (depending on which they were in) - every PM 1721-1916, 1922-1942
Chancellor of the Exchequer - Walpole, Pelham, Grenville, North, Pitt the Younger, Addington, Perceval, Canning, Peel (first term only), Gladstone (1873-1874, 1880-1882 only), Baldwin (May-Aug 1923 only)
Foreign Secretary - Salisbury (1885-1886, 1887-1892, 1895-1900 only), MacDonald (1924 only)
Secretary of State for War - Asquith (Jan-Aug 1914 only)
Minister of Defence - Churchill (1940-1945, 1951-1952 only), Attlee (1945-1946 only)
Plus various ones holding Lord President of the Council, Lord Privy Seal and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at odd moments.
Not the most significant list and you could argue that until about 1840 it was expected that a PM in the Commons would always take the Exchequer, but otherwise the job wasn't normally regarded as one of the top ones (and for that matter in that period it seems to have only rarely been held by a non PM Leader of the House of Commons). Timrollpickering 23:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

24th July[edit]

This has been reported to be the date when Blair resigns. However, it is really only speculation, so should anything be added about it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.29.213.174 (talk) 19:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

When he resigns is very much up to him, there are 2 seperate positions he is to resign from - Labour leader and Prime Minister, the timing for when he goes as Labour leader could be affected by the Local Election results - it would not surprise me if there were to be an announcement from the Prime Minister on when he would go as Labour leader at the point when Postal Ballots would be about to be sent out, in the hope that the Local Elections might not be used as a stick to beat him with as has been suggested.
It appears likely that the vacancy for Labour leader will occur at some point in May after the close of polls in the Local Elections, dates such as the start of power sharing in Northern Ireland or the 10th anniversary of his becoming PM will not affect this because he would still be PM for these dates anyway. He has stated that he intends to attend an EU Conference on 22 June 2007 still as Prime Minister, beyond that I suppose it depends what he feels he has left to do and so he might not resign as PM at the same point as the new Labour leader is elected. Indeed he might come to some kind of arrangement with the new Labour leader over the transferal of power in terms of times and dates, the new Labour leader might well hold some title such as First Secretary of State prior to him assuming the role of Prime Minister.
Tony Blair is committed to have finished as Prime Minister before the 2007 Labour Conference and TUC Conferences and so far that is all that is really known - this narrows the likely time for his going down as PM to being some point between the beginning of the last week of June and the beginning of the first week in September 2007.--Lord of the Isles 19:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from a Labour MP[edit]

I've tried to keep my corrections to the strictly factual, and I'm glad that most of them have stuck, e.g. the odd suggestions in the original that Gordon was considering not standing. I am still highly sceptical that Tony Blair will endorse anyone until the selection has occurred, but we'll see. However, I'm keen to insist on keeping Clarke as a potential rather than an actual candidate. I know him personally and this is a fact. Moreover, the citation in the piece refers to an article where he says he's not going to stand (which is also too definite IMO).

NickPalmerMPNick PalmerNickPalmerMP 08:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by NickPalmerMP (talk • contribs) 08:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Unless you have evidence that you are who you say you are then your statements have to be treated the same way as anyone else's are in Wikipedia, because anyone could say they were anybody. I could say that I knew the Secretary General of the UN or that I was Vladimir Putin, it wouldn't be true though, I'm not Prince Charles or Prince Phillip either, although don't take my word for it. If you are who you say you are then you should be able to post verifiable items on this subject on your own websites publicly referenced as being yours and then quote them as being your statement here.--Lord of the Isles 12:01, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Amending entry by 85.210.250.204[edit]

The anonymous user 85.210.250.204 has added the phrase 'The scandal of Brown's role in the destruction of millions of pensions in the UK has done serious damage to his candidacy'. I do not think this is NPOV - as it is a very over-simplified way of referring to the recent fuss over the 1997 decision to reduce tax exemptions for pension funds. As such, I am removing it

Vino s 12:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous user 85.210.250.204 also keeps eding comments relating to David Miliband to say that he has refused to rule out standing for the Labour leadership when in fact not only is there no evidence that he has ever even left the matter open, every statement by him is a straight forward rejection of the idea he will run for either leadership position, not only that but 85.210.250.204 is quoting articles to prove his point that actually say that others want him to run for the position but that he continues to reject the possibility of standing. If someone turns something down consistently and emphatically and others say they should do it they are still rejecting it.--Lord of the Isles 12:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline of Events[edit]

Perhaps this should become a seperate article and include events relating to the Deputy Leadership candidates and suggested candidates and be linked also to that other article? --Lord of the Isles 18:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Given its size, I think so, yes. Js farrar 02:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia isn't always a crystal ball![edit]

I've deleted the blank results table twice now, on the basis that we do not yet have enough declared candidacies to confirm that there will be an election. The <! --> note included even said that the table "assume[d]" that McDonnell and Brown would get sufficient support - but this lays down why it is not appropriate to include this ("Individual scheduled or expected future events should only be included if the event is notable and almost certain to take place.") WP is not a news site, tempting as it is to think it is. Peeper 12:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Will there be any election at all?[edit]

Given that Gordon Brown's only declared challenger, John McDonnell, has not yet received the sufficient number of nominations to be an official candidate, what would happen to this article if there was in fact no election at all in a few days' time when nominations close? Surely the article would need to be renamed at the very least. Dovea 18:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a Leadership Election ongoing, the nomination process uses the method that both Labour and the Conservatives used to use to pick their leader, papers have been submitted and nominations are being recorded, if John McDonnell fails to get enough nominations then Gordon Brown will still have received a given number of nominations and so will John McDonnell and the result of the election will be that Gordon Brown as the only candidate to receive enough nominations to get onto the ballot will attend hustings and then be declared leader.--Lord of the Isles 18:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a list of the MPs who nominated McDonnell anywhere?

Candidates who declined to stand[edit]

Do we still really need a comprehensive list of who declined to stand and when? Given that nominations are now closed, it is completely trivial to mention that people who are not standing are not standing. It is my feeling that this section can be completely removed, or shortened to a sentence like "All other people mentioned by the media as potential candidates eventually declined to stand." in one of the other sections, maybe mentioning that there was a lot of ballyhoo about Miliband or Reid in particular. Though obviously I am not going to remove it unilaterally, I definitely think that the article can be massively slimmed down now, hopefully to make way for the bits of that bloody timeline that make up the majority of what this article should hold to be merged back in. Any thoughts? Jdcooper 01:35, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • And come to think of it, why on earth do we need a "If enough candidates had done this ___" section. Surely all of that is (or at least should be) covered elsewhere on wikipedia under a more general article on Labour Party procedures? While wikipedia is not a crystal ball, it is also not an alternative history almanac. This section should also be removed. I will do that this time tomorrow unless there are any objections or someone else has already done it. Jdcooper 02:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Disambig page[edit]

Just a note to say I've added this page to Labour Party leadership election, 2007 because of the leadership election which took plage in Israel's Labor Party during the same year. There's also a redirect at Labor Party leadership election, 2007 to take into account the different spellings. Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 14:59, 26 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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