Harman beats Johnson to Labour Deputy spot

Against all expectations and Guido’s tip, it turns out that Harriet Harman has trumped Alan Johnson by 50.4 to 49.6 of the vote. Sky News had been reporting Johnson as the winner for a long time before it was announced.

Has anyone seen the full breakdown of preferences and transfers? My guess would be that Johnson was ahead of Harman on first preferences and got beaten on successive rounds of transfers. Also, I wonder if Benn was up there with them on first preferences…

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23 Comments

  • Best I’ve seen is Chris Doidge (no idea who he is) from the B4L feed:
    Alan Johnson received far more first, second, third and fourth-preference votes than Harriet Harman.

    Harriet Harman is still Labour Deputy Leader.

    Fourth round:
    Jon Cruddas 30.06%
    Harriet Harman 33.58%
    Alan Johnson 36.35%

    Fifth round:
    Harriet Harman 50.43%
    Alan Johnson 49.56%

    So Jon Cruddas’ votes went to Harman then.
    ===

    He calls it a silly voting system, I call it a very close election and a system that ensures a decent result. I want to know how badly Blears did.

  • Tony Greaves 24th Jun '07 - 3:46pm

    Blears was bottom – hooray!!! There was a huge round of cheers in the hall when it was announced that she had been eliminated so perhaps the Labour Party are not all stupid. Hain was next out – another hooray!!!

    The interesting elimination was on the fourth count when Harman only just beat Cruddas. If Cruddas had pushed her out, Johnson would certainly have been deputy leader.

    One good thing from all this is that it’s been an educational exercise for the Labour Party and the hacks in AV voting.

  • Came back to say Blears was bottom, Tony obviously has better sources than the Labour blogs which are roundly useless, or the BBC which only has the top two results (stupid policy). Thing is:

    One good thing from all this is that it’s been an educational exercise for the Labour Party and the hacks in AV voting.

    From my above link and various posts at LabourHome, they don’t like it. Apparently it’s a “soviet” system that denied Johnson/Cruddas/’insert my favoured candidate here’ their righteous victory.

    Anyone suggest a news source that might be updated that might actually cover the full story?

  • Take it back, Jon Worth linked to the bit of the Labour site I obviously couldn’t find:
    http://www.labour.org.uk/leadership/deputy_leader_election_results
    Cruddas won the first round but didn’t pick up many transfers; Harman’s blatent grab for his 2nd prefs on Question Time (and presumably elsewhere) last week appears to have done the trick.

  • welshproudliberal 24th Jun '07 - 4:22pm

    It’s good for us, I was dreading Johnson, he’s very capable. She’s just silly and boring.

  • Too right … Harman isn’t someone we should worry about.

  • Cheltenham Robin 24th Jun '07 - 5:00pm

    I see that Ming has called for Gordon Brown to seek a mandate from the country with an immediate General Election.

    Is this really sensible with us on 15% a “Brown Bounce” and Ming’s ratings in minus figures?

    Surely this is just a silly soundbite just for the sake of saying something?

  • Basically we have a fight on. Harman’s speech was well-written but poorly delivered. But Brown was good – and he was good on The Politics Show at noon. He’s not the dour vote-loser that some have believed he is. Those stray Labour votes we picked up last time might soon be heading home (in fact many of them have already gone). We have to raise our game. As surprised as I am to type this… Laurence may be right. We need to a good strong message (and “narrative”) of our own to win people over.

  • Tony Greaves 24th Jun '07 - 9:35pm

    My “source” was watching the announcement on the TV! It is now fascinating to see what happened. Under a pure FPTP Cruddas won. Harman was actually ahead of Johnson on the first count.

    Blears votes went heavily to Johnson (“loyalists”) and second to Harman (women).

    Hain’s votes went almost equally to the other four – all things to all men and no real base in the party!

    Benn’s went to all remianing three but most were loyalist votes to Johnson who at this stage must have thought he had won.

    But Cruddas votes were decisively tilted to Harman. Quite a lot of these must have been fourth and fifth preferences.

    I wonder if they will ever release the actual voting figures in each of the three sections?

  • “But Cruddas votes were decisively tilted to Harman. Quite a lot of these must have been fourth and fifth preferences.”

    Cruddas himself said he would have voted Harman as his second preference. Maybe that helped HH in the end if some Cruddas’ supporters followed his advice

    “I wonder if they will ever release the actual voting figures in each of the three sections?”

    I think they should release all MPs votes

  • Tony Williams 24th Jun '07 - 10:06pm

    >> I think she’s gorgeous by the way
    Laurence – I used to think your judgement was questionable; now I know that to be the case!

  • Tony Williams 25th Jun '07 - 6:56am

    >> You’ll all come round to my way of thinking in the end

    I thought you didn’t believe in the apocalypse 😉

  • Tony Greaves wrote, “Under a pure FPTP Cruddas won”

    I don’t think many voters would have voted the same way had it been just FPTP. Many would have voted tactically.

  • welshproudliberal 25th Jun '07 - 11:24am

    Allt his talk of fourth and fifth preferences.

    I thought they only had two preferences. Sorry if I’m wrong.

  • “I thought they only had two preferences. Sorry if I’m wrong.”

    they could rank all candidates from 1 to 6

  • No.9 states that ‘Harmen isn’t someone we should worry about’
    Thing is 52% of population might find having a woman in such a high profile position, who talks about families, women and addressing inequalities, resonates with them. HH has certainly reinvented herself since she was sacked as Minister for Social Security. We need to develop our own strong policies in these areas.

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