Owen Smith finally overtakes “no nomination”

Jeremy Corbyn is picking up the lion’s share of endorsements from local Labour Parties as he continue with his second leadership contest in two years. Constituency Labour Parties have been meeting over the last couple of weeks to make supporting nominations in the Labour leadership contest. At close of business on Thursday, 4th August, Corbyn had received 101 nominations – with just 21 local parties backing rebel challenger Owen Smith. Another 20 parties had chosen to make no nomination.

It wasn’t all bad news for Smith, though. For the first time since parties began nominating, his tally overtook the number of constituencies deciding not to make a nomination. At last Smith can say that he is more popular than “no nomination”.

•Whichever leadership candidate turns out to be the more popular with party members will go on to lead the most popular political party in the UK – at least as far as financial donations go. Political party accounts for 2015 have just been released – showing that Labour had an income of just over £51 million last year. This was some way ahead of the Conservative Party, which raised just under £42 million the same year. Jeremy Corbyn’s opponent keep claiming that he is unelectable – but it does look like he is at least attracting enough support to amass a war chest ready to fund a substantial amount of campaigning. The Tories rushed to respond to the news – with Steve Hilton, a former aid to David Cameron, urging the new Prime Minister Theresa May to bring in a cap on political donations. Hilton urged that such a cap should be set at a low level. This is thought to be aimed at stopping Labour receiving donations from the trade unions, while allowing the wealthy individuals and corporations that fund the Tories to find alternative routes to channel fund to the governing party.

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