Labour gets the band back together to sing the same old songs

Now this is not the end. It’s not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. The Labour leadership contest already feels like it has lasted an eternity and there’s a fair chance that by the time it ends on 4 April half the country will never get to find out who has actually won because they will have died of the coronavirus. Actually, scrub that. With Matt Hancock in charge of the NHS, the mortality rate could be significantly higher.

But the roadshow moves inexorably onwards and it has now reached Manchester for the Guardian’s own leadership hustings in front of an audience of 800. So Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy and Keir Starmer took to the stage like an old band preparing to perform their greatest hits. They may have had their artistic differences along the way but they’d miss each other if they weren’t there. They’ve been together so long now that they can now finish each others’ sentences and they even laugh politely at the same gags they must have already heard countless times before. It’s showbiz, baby.

The hustings opened with a quick show of hands. How many people had already made up their minds who they were planning to vote for? Almost everyone stuck an arm in the air. And how many were open to the possibility of changing their minds? Almost every hand went down. Still, there were one or two votes still to be won and the band quickly fell into their familiar roles. Long-Bailey on bass, remaining somewhat in the shadows and struggling to make eye contact with the audience. Nandy on lead guitar with a few showstopping licks and Starmer on steady-as-she-goes rhythm guitar and vocals, the unifying force holding the act together.

Still, the songs remained pretty much the same. Long-Bailey did deviate slightly from the script by saying that not all Labour’s policies in the last election were totally ideal – a big concession from her – but she still felt like the continuity candidate trying to make out she was somehow different to Jeremy Corbyn. And maybe deep inside she is, but she just can’t bring herself to admit it. She feels almost paralysed in the crossfire. Constrained by loyalty and afraid to bust out and say what she really thinks.

Rebecca Long-Bailey

A close ally of the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, the Salford MP and shadow business secretary has been groomed as a potential leftwing contender for the top job.

Pitch Promising to champion “progressive patriotism”.

Lisa Nandy

The Wigan MP has built a reputation as a campaigner for her constituency and others like it, many of which have fallen to the Tories. A soft-left candidate, she resigned from the shadow cabinet in 2016 over Corbyn’s leadership and handling of the EU referendum.

Pitch Wants to “bring Labour home” to voters that have abandoned the party in its traditional strongholds.

Keir Starmer

Ambitious former director of public prosecutions has led the charge for remain in the shadow cabinet. He was instrumental in shifting Labour’s position towards backing a second referendum

Pitch Launched his campaign by highlighting how he has stood up for leftwing causes as a campaigning lawyer, and unveiled the slogan “Another Future is Possible”, arguing "Labour can win again if we make the moral case for socialism"

Nandy has no such problems. She knows she’s the outsider with not much of a prayer so she’s beholden to no one. Not even her mother, whom she fears may vote for Keir. There’s a swagger in her performance as she speaks her mind. The party got Brexit wrong, got its policies wrong and got the country wrong. So bring on the apocalypse. Labour has to change or die. What you got to say to that, motherfuckers? By and large the motherfuckers seemed to think she had a point. And she faced down criticisms of disloyalty by pointing out that it had been the leadership that had set its heart on a factional death spiral rather than taking on the Tories and engaging with the country.

All the while, Starmer was rather biding his time. He knows he’s the red-hot favourite but he’s keen not to appear over-confident or as if he’s hogging the limelight. A little diffidence goes a long way. He takes the occasional mild jab about being one of the architects of Labour’s Brexit position and being just another typical Westminster white man in good spirit. But then these are not jibes that are really meant to wound. They are more there because they’re there. Just part of the show. No one in the contest wants to play dirty.

So Starmer just kept to the same script he has been using since time began. Or before that even, when the leadership race started. He is the great unifier. Labour’s new Messiah. Unapologetic for trying to get a better Brexit deal than the Tories. Unapologetic about reaching out to parts of the country they have neglected. There was a simple choice. Labour could carry on more or less as it was or try to win an election and achieve real change. And he would lead them to the promised land.

Only once did we see flashes of a different Keir. When the Mr Nice Guy image dropped and the eyes turned to ice. It came when he was asked if taking his children to football was really the most exciting thing he’d ever done. “Look,” he said. He’d had a shit few weeks with the death of his wife’s mother. So he’d had more important things to think about that come up with petty lifestyle questions. Besides, did anyone really think he was dumb enough to tell the whole world what the most exciting thing he’d done? He wasn’t that mad. That response did more to hoover up any undecided votes than any other.

Otherwise it was business as usual. Much the same answers to much the same questions as they had been asked countless times before. Then after a few questions from the audience it was all over. For now. It would all kick off again on Thursday. Goodbye Manchester. Hello Dewsbury.