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Labour leadership odds

Peter Henley|15:23 UK time, Wednesday, 21 July 2010

leadershipBroad smiles amongst those backing Ed Miliband's leadership bid at Westminster today. Gloom amongst the others. The younger brother has won the backing of the biggest public sector union, Unite.

Bookies Paddy Power immediately cut their odds to 7/4. David Miliband remains the favourite at 2/5. Ed Balls drifts to 10/1, Andy Burnham is 33/1, Diane Abbot 50/1.

The union vote is one third of the total, of course, alongside Labour party members and Mps. And it's one member, one vote - so the General Secretaries' opinions may well be completely ignored.

Can you tell them apart? Four men. Four Oxbridge educated politicans. Two Eds. Two Milibands. What is the real choice for Labour?

contenders
And what can we work out from the speeches designed for internal consumption about the speech that the winner will make to conference in September?

If it's Saturday it must be Southampton, the latest stage of a gruelling hustings tour around the country. I saw the five contenders at an earlier appearance in Oxford and I offer this guide to the evolving picture.

Diane Abbott gets a huge cheer from the activists, and plays up every difference she can find. David Mililband looks and talks most like a Prime Minister in waiting, but is that such a good thing?

Certainly Ed Balls comes across well, but he's struggling to leave the baggage of his links with Gordon Brown. By contrast Andy Burnham seems to be carving out the freshest approach, the only one reluctant to push high taxes as the cure for all ills, but we're still waiting for the killer policy.

Which leaves Ed Miliband. He's a confident performer, in a University town he talked about a graduate tax instead of tuition fees.

He's talked about the South of England as a key to Labour fortunes, openly raising the problems caused in communities by migrant workers, trying to address the lower income Labour voters who deserted them at the polls.

The transferable voting system will also make a difference, probably working against the front-runner as second preferences are distributed amongst those knocked out.

At a Downing Street reception that point was forcibly made to me by former Conservative Leader Ian Duncan Smith. He reminded me how he'd come from behind to snatch victory.

In fact IDS was so convinced that Ed Miliband was underestimated that he told me that he put his money where his mouth is early on, and stands to pick up a tidy sum from the bookies himself if the younger brother wins Labour's contest.

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