Andy Burnham. Photograph: Ben Cawthra/Rex Shutterstock

Andy Burnham

Burnham, the favourite, has 61 nominations. He will be looking for the support of Unite and the GMB unions. Key supporters include Hilary Benn, Michael Dugher, Dan Jarvis, Ian Lavery, Lucy Powell, Jamie Reed, Rachel Reeves and Owen Smith. He has spoken of Labour rebuilding an emotional connection with its supporters, and underlined his working-class roots. His weakness lies in whether he has switched his politics from being a Blairite special adviser to developing a more leftwing pitch as shadow health secretary. He was Treasury chief secretary, briefly overseeing the 2007 spending review before the great crash, and had to pick up the mess after the mid-Staffordshire health scandal. But he has also been a consistent advocate of integrating health and social care. John Lehal, managing director of political consultancy Insight, is helping, as is the shadow lord chancellor, Charles Falconer, a man who came to admire Burnham in his call for an inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster. Katie Myler is helping Burnham’s existing spinner, Phil Ball, a man who could create a story out of any NHS waiting list numbers.

Yvette Cooper. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Getty Images

Yvette Cooper

Cooper, the shadow home secretary, secured an impressive 59 nominations, including 29 from women – the same number of female nominations as Burnham. She has fewer front-rank names, but has the support of Chris Leslie, the shadow chancellor, and Vernon Coaker, the shadow defence secretary. Like Burnham, she has to shake off the title of continuity Labour, and will probably have the greatest trouble criticising the economic policy of the Brown years or of Ed Miliband. A strong Commons performer in government and opposition, she has been criticised for ministerial indecision. For all her experience in Labour politics – she was an economics researcher to John Smith in 1992 – she is still not as widely known, and yesterday in an opening speech she spoke of being the granddaughter of a miner, the daughter of a trade unionist, and marching with her dad on the People’s March for Jobs in the early 80s. She has the strongest campaign team, including revered Labour organiser Sheila Murphy, and Luke Holland, from Labour’s key seats media operation. They know the Labour party like the back of their hand.



Liz Kendall. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

Liz Kendall

Kendall, the shadow health minister, has quickly won the brand of the change candidate, and consequently the endorsement of many centre-right newspaper columnists, as well as favourable coverage in the Sun. In parliament, her 41 supporters include Toby Perkins, head of her campaign team, Tristam Hunt, Gloria de Piero, Ivan Lewis, Pat McFadden, Chukka Umunna and Alison McGovern. Her campaign director is Morgan McSweeney, head of the Labour Group at the Local Government Association. Other team members are Hopi Sen, a former press officer, and Mark Ferguson, the former editor of Labour List, the main in-house Labour website. Margaret McDonagh, Labour general secretary and a key seat campaigner, is also helping. A former press adviser to Blair, the cool-headed Matthew Doyle, heads the press operation. Her chief danger is her inexperience and thin knowledge of subjects outside her intellectual comfort zone. With a first from Cambridge, she needs to learn fast, and also prevent being defined by her opponents as a kamikazi Blairite who has not turned the page on 1997, let alone 2015.

Jeremy Corbyn. Photograph: Haydn Wheeler / Demotix

Jeremy Corbyn

Corbyn, who secured 36 nominations, has been a part of the Labour left furniture for as long almost as Tony Benn managed, but his likeable manner and refusal to personalise his politics mean he has not created nearly as many enemies. A stalwart at any leftwing demonstration and platform speaker at any left rally, Corbyn has made protest his life. There is no international campaign – from the Iraq war, to nuclear weapons, to Palestine, to Guatemala – to which he has not signed up. Domestically, he has been a regular attender at anti-austerity rallies, and has won friends in the Green party for his environmentalism. His campaign manager has been John McDonnell, the leftwing MP for Hayes and Harlington who was foolishly denied a chance to stand against Gordon Brown in 2007. Corbyn and the rest of the small Socialist Campaign Group of MPs had been expecting to exert their influence over the Labour leadership in this parliament on the assumption that it would be hung. Instead the left now has the chance to discover whether the beloved “rank and file” will take the chance to embrace the politics of anti-austerity. At least, he will want to do better than Diane Abbott in 2010, who won only 9,300 votes.