1. Cruddas 2. Johnson 3. Benn 4. Hain 5. Harman 6. Blears

So fairly close to the scientific Berstram analysis. I’m glad to hear Harriet Harman on the radio this morning denying that she’d said various things about Iraq, or that what she might or might not have said about Iraq had any bearing on the contest, but rather insisting that people voted for her because of her ideas about caring for elderly relatives. I think this usefully sets the tone for the Harman Deputy Leadership.

And – yes – it is very good that Blair is on the way out. But it’s also nice that some of the others who have really disgraced themselves in office (Goldsmith, Reid) are on the way out, too. Don’t lose sight of the little pleasures just because you’re gloating too much over the Fall of Blair.

As I will eventually get round to posting on my blog I voted:

1. Cruddas 2. Benn 3. Johnson 4. Harman 5. Hain 6. Blears

Cruddas seemed the most radical, fresh candidate by a country mile. I have met both Benn and Johnson and they seem like honest, good people, although Johnson was talking rubbish through most of the campaign. Harman felt like a very forced ‘Cruddas-lite’ throughout the campaign – saying what she thought the party members and unions wanted to hear. It was the political equivalent of Eddie and the Hot Rods – pub rock trying to be new wave (sorry, that’s rather an obscure reference). She might be a pleasant surprise in the job, but I’m not that hopeful.

Anyway, I’m just pleased that Blair is the hell out of there. That will provide me with at least four and a half hours of satisfaction before reality reasserts itself… will someone please pass the mescaline?

I do think Benn is perceived by the media and the public (as far as he’s known) as being honest and straightforward, and this is exactly what we need after the disaster of loans for peerages.

On Cruddas’ support for Strangers into Citizens – surely this is a bad thing? Harman’s support for regularisation but not necessarily the SiC programme is much more encouraging. Cruddas seems completely wedded to the SiC plan – which includes so many exceptions and conditions that it would effectively be used by the government to flush out illegalised migrants ahead of mass deportations. The SiC campaign is also run in an incredibly top-down way without the involvement of asylum seekers and other migrants at a decision making level, and doesn’t form the basis for a mass movement of migrants that could actually make the government do something they don’t want to do.

For me Cruddas’ promotion of this campaign without really understanding the issues is quite revealing, and I’m not sure I want to promote him by adding to his support.

Many of the other candidates have postured or appealed to one or other section of opinion within the party through hints and briefings and so on in a way that, had the frontrunner engaged in it, could have turned the contest into a really unhealthy one for the Party. I think Harman and Hain are the worst culprits – but the rest are also engaged in it to some degree or other.

Hilary is, in that sense a unity candidate – but more a unity candidate in that he would be a unifying influence rather than that he represents an appeal for unity. He just doesn’t do off the record briefings about his colleagues and so on.

More seriously, if I was in a position to have a vote, I’d probably go for Benn or Cruddas, partly because neither of them seem to think victory means they automatically become Deputy PM.

And one can hope that were he to become Deputy Leader, one of his priorities would be to ensure that Margaret Hodge never said anything in public ever again ever about housing, immigration, etc.

(And, yes, no slanging match, please.)