Labour’s mayoral hopefuls have just a few weeks left to put their name forward (the deadline is 18 June) and we’re starting to get a clearer picture of who the main contenders will be.
Ken Livingstone and Oona King have already entered the race and there is growing speculation that David Lammy is about to do the same. The Tottenham MP has a long-standing interest in the position, and in an Evening Standard column last year he notably proposed that Labour hold an open primary to select candidates. Alan Johnson, as my colleague Jon Bernstein has previously noted, is another figure rumoured to be keen to take on his namesake, Boris Johnson.
But the Labour politician who many are desperate to see run is Jon Cruddas. It’s not hard to see why. Cruddas is an exceptional campaigner with high levels of support among Labour members and the non-aligned left. As someone with an excellent record on working-class and ethnic-minority issues, he is ideally placed to run the capital.
But my instinct is that he will not run, for much the same reasons that he didn’t enter the Labour leadership election. An unusually thoughtful and independent-minded politician, Cruddas is keenly aware of the constraints that leadership imposes. This grass-roots campaigner would feel marooned in City Hall.
I doubt this will prevent his many supporters urging him to run right up to the deadline for nominations. Sunny Hundal has just created a Facebook group calling on him to stand for the job.
Whatever the outcome of the nominations process, we will know the winner by 22 September, the day before the next Labour leader is revealed.
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