A friend recently took up a top role with a major international tech company. She had ten interviews and the head-hunter who recruited her said he had spent over a year putting forward over 80 candidates before she got the job; the company preferring to leave the role vacant rather than recruit the wrong person.
I thought of her as local members tweeted me to demand that #harriethangon and delay the leadership race. I don’t know whether it is or should be possible to delay the contest, and I am not proposing we consider eighty candidates. But Labour party members and supporters – and MPs – should have the opportunity to test more than two or three for both the leadership and the deputy leadership of our party. Or put it another way, I am not sure it is necessary to go long, but I am absolutely sure it is necessary to go broad.
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