We had our fun. It is back to boring normal politics now. Tedious things such as a government with a standard majority in the House of Commons trying to do difficult things like get better results out of the NHS, schools and police.

Boring things such as an opposition with no power except the force of words and the hope of persuading the people that it would be a more competent and compassionate administrator of the nation’s affairs.

Normal politics is such a tiresome business that there will always be people, in government and in opposition, trying to liven it up. In government, we have Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s chief adviser, trying to dress up public service reform with trendy theories and the zany recruitment of “weirdos and misfits”.

In opposition, we have Jess Phillips, who thinks she’s the first politician who ever thought telling the truth was an exciting selling point. She has an excellent slogan for her campaign to lead the Labour Party, “Speak truth, win power,” but her rivals won’t take kindly to the implication that they are liars, and it is the kind of claim that has a tendency to come back to bite a politician.

The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Show all 8 1 /8 The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Keir Starmer The former director of public prosecutions undoubtedly has announced that he is standing for the leadership. He is highly-regarded by both left-wingers and centrists in the party. As Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, he played a key role in the party’s eventual backing of a second referendum. Before becoming an MP, he was a human rights lawyer - conducting cases in international courts including the European Court of Human Rights. Launching his bid, Starmer said that Labour must listen to the public on how to change "restore trust in our party as a force for good." A YouGov poll places him comfortably in the lead as the preferred candidate of 36% of party members EPA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Lisa Nandy Wigan MP Lisa Nandy has announced she wil stand for the leadership. In a letter to the Wigan Post she said she wanted to bring Labour "home" to voters in its traditional strongholds who have abandoned the party. Nandy went on to say that she understands "that we have one chance to win back the trust of people in Wigan, Workington and Wrexham." A YouGov poll shows that Nandy is the first preference for 6% of partymembers. Getty The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Rebecca Long Bailey A key ally of the current left-wing leadership of the party, the Salford & Eccles MP is viewed in some quarters as the natural successor to Mr Corbyn and describes herself as a “proud socialist”. Highly regarded by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. She won also won plaudits for her performance filling in for Corbyn both at prime minister’s questions and during the general election debates. The shadow business secretary grew up by Old Trafford football ground and began her working life serving at the counter of a pawn shop. Launching her leadership bid, Long Bailey said the party needs to make the positive case for immigration as a "positive force." She also broke with Corbyn over Trident, saying "If you have a deterrent you have to be prepared to use it." PA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Angela Rayner - Deputy leadership Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has joined the contest for deputy leadership of the party. After ruling herself out of running for the leadership, the Ashton-under-Lynne MP launched her bid for deputy warning that Labour faces the "biggest challenge" in its history and must "win or die." She is close with leadership contender Rebecca Long Bailey PA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Rosena Allin-Khan - Deputy leadership Shadow sport minister Rosena Allin-Khan said Labour need to listen with "humility" to lost voters as she launched her bid for the deputy leadership. Writing in The Independent, the MP for Tooting refelcted: "We shouldn’t have ignored the warning signs in Scotland, and now we’ve paid the price in northern England, across the midlands and in Wales." PA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Dawn Butler - Deputy leadership Shadow women and equalities secretary Dawn Butler was first to announce her bid for the deputy leadership. The Brent Central MP has served in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet since 2016 PA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Ian Murray - Deputy leadership Labour's only MP in Scotland said that the architects of the party's "catastrophic failure" in the December election can not be allowed to lead the party forward PA The battle to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader Richard Burgon - Deputy leadership Shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon is standing as a continuity candidate, flaunting his loyalty to Jeremy Corbyn and saying it is wrong to blame the current leader for the election defeat PA

But in government and in opposition, I suspect it will be the dull who prevail in the next few years. That is why Keir Starmer will probably win the Labour leadership election. Party members may think that utopianism and authenticity have got them about as far as they can, and that the time has come to return to the old-fashioned virtues of experience, competence and being good at the job.

They do not, as Starmer put it in a telling phrase, want to “oversteer”. They do not want to abandon the idealism of the Corbyn years altogether. A souped-up Ed Milibandism will have to do. They do not want to go as far as to elect someone with actual ministerial experience, such as Yvette Cooper, but they have seen Starmer at the despatch box in parliament and he looked as if he knew what he was doing.

Above all, Starmer fought tenaciously to try to stop Britain leaving the EU, while remaining conspicuously loyal to Jeremy Corbyn, and most Labour Party members approved of both halves of that strategy.

The Brexit fight is over, but the approval remains, as confirmed by the first YouGov survey of Labour members, carried out 20-30 December. Starmer came top of the poll, winning 36 per cent of first preference votes among those with an opinion, and beating Rebecca Long Bailey by 61 per cent to 39 per cent in the final run-off.

This came as a surprise to those who assumed most Labour members were hardcore Momentumites who would vote for the most authentic representative of Corbyn-McDonnellist politics. But it should not have done. Starmer has long been popular among the members – indeed, last July he was even favoured over John McDonnell as a possible future leader.

The poll is only part of the story. These party members are not the only voters in this election. New members can join before a “freeze date” that will be set by the National Executive Committee on Monday. The NEC will also decide fees and timings for registered supporters to take part in the election – if Jon Lansman, chair of Momentum, the Corbyn supporters’ faction, thinks it can organise large numbers to sign up, expect the NEC to set a low fee, like the controversial £3 in 2015; otherwise, expect the NEC to drive new sign-ups to full-price membership.

Then there are about 100,000 affiliated supporters – trade unionists and members of socialist societies who aren’t full party members but who have opted in to a vote in leadership elections. They were more pro-Corbyn last time, and are not included in YouGov’s panel of Labour members.

The other big unknowns are the nominating process and the nature of the leadership campaign. The big threshold for entering the contest is no longer the number of MPs that a candidate can line up behind them. They need the support of just 10 per cent of their colleagues to get on the ballot paper, which is 21 MPs (unless the NEC decides to close nominations before 31 January, in which case candidates will need 22 MPs or MEPs, who will still be sitting in the European parliament).

The choke point for nominations is that candidates also need one of the big unions – Unite, Unison, GMB, Usdaw or CWU – or 33 constituency parties, which requires a strong grassroots organisation.

So I would expect only Starmer, Long Bailey, Phillips and Lisa Nandy to make it on to the ballot paper. Cooper has already “told friends” she won’t run. Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, has suffered by being seen as disloyal to Corbyn. Neither Clive Lewis nor Ian Lavery fills an obvious gap, while Dan Jarvis, mayor of Sheffield city region and still a low-profile MP, fills a rather too obvious one, standing for “a clean break with the past and a fresh start”.

Phillips and Nandy need their campaigns to catch fire, which seems a little more likely with Phillips, but otherwise it already looks like a straight fight between Starmer and Long Bailey. So far, Long Bailey has been invisible, apart from a shockingly poor article in The Guardian, feeding speculation that she doesn’t really want to run and is being pushed into it by the Corbynite core group.

Things might become interesting if she pulled out and paved the way for her friend Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, to run for leader instead of (or as well as) for deputy.