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The bookmakers have Keir Starmer the clear favourite to win the Labour leadership race.



I would suggest that Rebecca Long-Bailey is underpriced.



That is my impression after watching her and, just as importantly, the audience at a campaign rally in my home patch of Lewisham last night.



Although I have met Long-Bailey a couple of times I had never seen her try to energise a crowd with a stump speech.



She spoke with more passion, warmth and fluency than you might have expected.



She also showed that she is in tune with the party membership in London.

(Image: Matthew Horwood)





By far the biggest cheer of the night was for her plan to make MPs face open selections ahead of a general election.



Her colleagues in Westminster will hate this but the party faithful loved it.



In the wake of the election defeat party members in Lewisham are working through the stages of grief and are clearly stuck in denial.



The warm up speakers for Long-Bailey blamed everyone and everything for the election defeat except Jeremy Corbyn.



It was the triangulations over Brexit, it was a failure to organise, it was the lack of loyalty to Corbyn and, naturally, it was the fault of the media.



Long-Bailey’s analysis of why Labour lost was so carefully worded that she did not even mention the leader’s name when it came to listing where the party may have gone wrong.

But she was prepared to challenge, albeit gently, the Corbyn faithful for its failure to recognise Labour must be a broad church.



(Image: Getty Images)



At one point she urged the audience not to attack people in their own party as “Tories.”



This prompted a murmur of disapproval.



Clearly, there are still many in Labour who see Tony Blair as a more odious creature than any Conservative.



It is possible that once elected Long-Bailey will nudge the party back towards the centre.



But at the moment she is unapologetically trying to woo the membership by promising to keep the Corbyn flame alight.



Speaking to party members at the event you got the impression it was Long-Bailey or no one.



“If anyone else wins then I’ll leave the party,” one told me who may not have got the memo about the need for unity.



When I suggested to another member he should give Lisa Nandy a hearing if he was not impressed with Starmer, I was given short shrift.



“She ran Owen Smith’s leadership,” was the snarling reply.



Starmer is comfortably ahead in terms of nominations from Constituency Labour Parties but the race could be closer than you think.

Yes, I know London is not representative of the country but urban seats such as Lewisham have hundreds of party members and that could be the key to who wins.

Today's agenda:



Boris Johnson launches COP26 with Sir David Attenborough.



11.30am - Dominic Raab takes Foreign Office questions in the Commons.



2.30pm - Nadia Whittome leads a Westminster Hall debate on climate justice.



What I am reading:



Ben Glaze on day two of his tour of red wall constituencies



And



Simon Jenkins punctures the hyperbole of Boris Johnson’s trade vision