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This article examines the 2010 Labour leadership contest, seeking to explain why Ed Miliband narrowly defeated his brother, and erstwhile favourite, David. The article places this contest in the context of previous Labour leadership contests, and also the historical development of the often controversial electoral college which, on this occasion, meant that the first preferences of the Party's parliamentarians were outweighed by the votes of affiliated bodies, most notably the trade unions. Crucially, though, we argue that while undeniably important, the role of the trade unions in ensuring Ed Miliband's victory has been somewhat exaggerated by his political and media opponents. His success over his brother was also due to the fact that he attracted enough second preference votes cast by MPs/ Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and members of the constituency Labour parties (CLPs) to increase his share of overall support in the electoral college. David Miliband remained more popular than his brother among Labour parliamentarians and CLPs, but Ed Miliband reduced his brother's lead sufficiently over four rounds to ensure that when added to his share of the votes of individual trade union levy-payers, he secured a narrow victory over David Miliband. The votes of the latter were crucial to Ed Miliband, and ultimately decisive, but would still not have been sufficient to secure victory had he not also increased his support, via second preference votes, among Labour MPs/MEPs and CLP members.

This study estimates cumulative infection rates from Covid-19 in Great Britain by geographical units and investigates spatial patterns in infection rates. We propose a model-based approach to calculate cumulative infection rates from data on observed and expected deaths from Covid-19. Our analysis of mortality data shows that between 5 and 6% of people in Great Britain were infected by Covid-19 by the last third of April 2020. It is unlikely that the infection rate was lower than 3% or higher than 12%. Secondly, England had higher infection rates than Scotland and especially Wales, although the differences between countries were not large. Thirdly, we observed a substantial variation in virus infection rates in Great Britain by geographical units. Estimated infection rates were highest in the capital city of London where more than 10% of the population might have been infected and also in other major urban regions, while the lowest were in small towns and rural areas. Finally, spatial regression analysis showed that the virus infection rates increased with the increasing population density of the area and the level of deprivation. The results suggest that people from lower socioeconomic groups in urban areas (including those with minority backgrounds) were most affected by the spread of coronavirus in March and April.

Abstract:The Labour leadership contest of 2015 resulted in the election of the veteran Leftwing backbencher, Jeremy Corbyn, who clearly defeated the early favourite, Andy Burnham. Yet Corbyn enjoyed very little support among Labour MPs, and his victory plunged the PLP into turmoil, particularly as he was widely viewed as incapable of leading the Party to victory in the 2020 general election. Given that much of the established academic literature on Party leadership contests emphasises the ability to foster unity, and thereby render a party electable, as two of the key criteria for electing a new leader, coupled with overall competence, important questions are raised about how and why the Labour Party chose someone to lead them who clearly does not meet these criteria. We will argue that while these are the natural priorities of MPs when electing a new leader, in Corbyn's case, much of the extraparliamentary Labour Party was more concerned about ideological conviction and purity of principles, regardless of how far these diverged from public opinion. This was especially true of those who signed-up to the Labour Party following the 2015 general election defeat. Indeed, many of these only did so after Corbyn had become a candidate. This clearly suggests a serious tension between maximising intra-party democracy and ensuring the electability of the parliamentary party itself. 2The Labour Party has long been viewed by most of its members as a democratic socialist party, but this clearly has two meanings. The first is that the Party seeks to create a democratic socialist society, in which wealth and power are widely shared, and equality is a primary objective. The second meaning is that Labour is a democratic party in terms of the participatory role played by its members. However, this second definition immediately raises a problem when applied to the election of Labour Party leaders, namely whether they should be elected solely by the MPs who they will lead and work with on a daily basis in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), or by the extra-parliamentary Party, whose members often play such a vital role in constituencies and the workplace, and who also make a major collective contribution to the Party's funding. The purpose of this article is thus to explain how Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Labour Party leader in September 2015, from where and whom his support emanated, and why he attracted this support. In so doing, we will highlight the divergence between the criteria usually adopted by Labour parliamentarians when electing a new leader, and the qualities sought by much of the extra-parliamentary membership. Whereas the established academic literature emphasises the importance of party unity, electability and policy competence as the three key criteria for leadership candidates, we argue that these are the attributes usually (and understandably) prioritised by MPs themselves.By contrast, as Corbyn's election highlights, extra-parliamentary members, and particularly a party's rank-and-file activists, are much mo...