Media circus may puzzle the voters

Media circus may puzzle the voters | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics: "In fact the day's one piece of authentic, unscripted news is whether Michael Meacher or John McDonnell will have the votes to go forward as the left's challenger, hoping to open up the debate and undermine the Brown-Blair consensus which they fear Mr Brown will embrace too readily.

My money is on Mr McDonnell, the more solid candidate of the two, the one least likely to say 9/11 was a US plot or something equally daft. Like John Cruddas, the thoughtful leftwing candidate for the deputy leadership, he does not assume that Middle England is Labour's only electoral priority or that the heartlands can be taken for granted.

Dagenham - Mr Cruddas's seat - and Hayes and Harlington - Mr McDonnell's - may be on either side of London, but both have more than their share of poverty and hardship. Working-class voters concerned with bread and butter issues - the 'social wage' that is good public schools and hospitals - are as disaffected as Islington liberals for whom Iraq and civil liberties are Tony Blair's real failures."