Newsnight Hustings

My take on the Newsnight hustings:

Blears - her shortness was a distinct advantage that made her tower over the other candidates. All those hours spent in front of the mirror perfecting the smile have paid off. It certainly fooled me. At one stage I was sure she was winking directly at me. Straight answers, John Wayne style, with no silly attempts to court the left. "Ordinary people don't want council housing, public transport and state schools", she argued, "they just want a chance to be as successful as the rich people and become wealthy themselves. They want a shove to get them out of the gutter. Just like me." What a persuasive argument. I was completely sold.

Cruddas - just the opposite. A loony leftie who wants everyone to live in council houses in South Yorkshire, work down the pits and take a bath once a fortnight in a cast iron pan in front of the fire. He thinks he's the best at campaigning, but if this is the criterion for Deputy Leader we'd be much better off with Hazel as she is a far better campaigner. In fact I can't imagine why, when asked who she'd vote for if she wasn't standing, she nominated Cruddas for his campaigning ability.

Johnson - sensible, tough right-wing answers of the sort you'd expect from a trades unionist. Charming, but in a style I would normally associate with The Sopranos. "Hey - you vota for me or you getta your knees broken." I Can't imagine him stirring people to canvass until their knuckles bleed with a rousing rant from the battle bus steps. But I could imagine their knees bleeding.

Hain - came across as a revolting slob who wants to be the "umbilical cord between the Cabinet and party". Linda made it clear that she would need to down several glasses of sherry before she would consider an umbilical connection to him. In fact she wondered if I wouldn't be more his type than her. He shuffled about nervously, leaning to the left until asked policy questions, at which point he tried to rattle out the standard answers but didn't convince me.

Benn - there were horrible moments when that involuntary jaw movement and the outstretched hands transformed him into his father. But not to worry, there was nothing in common with dad's politics. Smart-arse, smarmy answers on everything, especially Iraq and Trident. As he seems to share a political position with me on most issues I can't really work out why I hate him so much.

Harman - awful. Just awful. Actually beyond awful. Cringeworthy efforts to appear leftwing - e.g. refusing to give a straight yes or no on Trident, delivered in the style of her former colleague Patricia Hewitt. Quite the most revolting slug ever to crawl her way to the top of the Labour Party. And that's quite a feat, because we've got thousands of slimy slugs who've crawled their way to the top of the Labour Party.

So once again it was no-contest. Anyone with half a brain would have seen that one candidate towered over all the others. Smart, good looking, witty, sharp and decisive. An intellectual and political genius. I'm sure that the mass of voters in parliament, the CLPs and the unions will feel the same way. So, who won the Newsnight debate? The graph below shows the public voting on the BBC website as of 10.00 this morning.