Thread by @shaunjlawson

This thread features a variety of Labour MPs. I'll attempt to position them according to:

1. Where they sit on the broad left/right axis as applies to politics

2. Where they sit on that axis within the Labour Party: which is on the left and centre-left to begin with.

It's no easy task. At all. But I'll give it a shot.

Let's start with someone easy. Jeremy Corbyn: on the left of the spectrum and on the left of the party. Seen by the public as 'hard left' - which is miserably unfair. There is no hard left in the Parliamentary Party.

Rebecca Long-Bailey: left of spectrum, left of party. But not *quite* as left as Corbyn or McDonnell (but we're only talking fractions here).

Angela Rayner: left of spectrum, left of party. But popular among centre of the party too. That's not a bad thing; it's a great thing.

Before she announced she wasn't running for leader, she was the choice of very many of my most left wing followers. Observing some of the same followers distancing themselves from her because she's been nominated by many in the centre of the party has been... quite the spectacle.

Dawn Butler: left of spectrum, left of party. In practice, there's really nothing to choose between her, Rayner and RLB. Public thinks they're all VERY left. If we must insist on separating them, she's closer to RLB than Rayner... but there's about a sixteenth of an inch in it.

Richard Burgon: see above. There's almost nothing he has in his politics which Butler, Rayner and RLB don't all have too. The dividing line being employed on here (when the public either coukln't care less or it'll backfire among them) is the response to the 10 Pledges.

So they're all on the left of the party and the left of the spectrum. They're the easiest ones to classify.

Then we come to those in the centre of the party and on the centre-left of the spectrum. Which includes a whole bunch of MPs and Labour figures.

This group includes Emily Thornberry: seen by the public as on the left - yet she's closer to Keir Starmer than any of those I've mentioned so far. Thornberry and Starmer's politics are borderline identical; she's in trouble in the race because she's chased the same nominations.

Close to Thornberry and Starmer, but fractionally to the right of them (and seen by the public as firmly centre-left): Sadiq Khan. An arch-Remainer like them; but much more heavily critical of Corbyn than either. Criticism which gains him credibility among his London electorate.

On the centre-right of the party - but with pretty differing politics - are:

- Lisa Nandy: seen as sympathetic towards Leave (though contrary to what I'd heard the other day, she DIDN'T vote for the Withdrawal Agreement. Apologies to her for that).

Although she's on the centre-right of the party, she's firmly centre-left in politics. In fact, she's closer to the old Eurosceptic Labour tradition than many of her contemporaries.

Also on the centre-right of the party and firmly centre-left politically: Yvette Cooper.

Note: what Cooper did re: the Work Capability Assessment and Atos was anything but centre-left. It was a disgrace. But it was also a decade ago. While she's clearly to the right of Starmer, Thornberry and Khan, she's VERY recognisably Labour.

While some of her colleagues on the right of the PLP disgraced themselves in recent years, she put her head down and got on with it: excelling herself on Brexit, where she was quite brilliant. She's about people, not herself. All she wants is to unite against the Tories.

Also on the centre-left of politics and the centre-right of the party: Hilary Benn. Whose speech on Syria kinda summed up the whole problem. It went down brilliantly in Parliament and likely among some of the public. It infuriated the membership.

Many probably view Benn as a 'centrist' or 'Blairite' because... he was for bombing in the Middle East, right? But it's nowhere near that simple. There is nothing venal or selfish about Hilary; he acts according to conviction and is very forensic in his approach.

Both Benn and Cooper are assets to the Labour Party, respected among the public, and along with colleagues across the left, centre and right of the party, should be part of the Shadow Cabinet.

As should someone else. Someone even LESS popular among my followers.

Stella Creasy. Centre-left of politics (but slightly to the right of those I've mentioned); centre-right of the party, but closer to its right than its centre. A practical politician who, at a different time, would've been a prominent front bench figure.

Any Shadow Cabinet of All The Talents should include Cooper, Benn and Creasy. All would've been absolute certs until we as a party moved collectively to the left of most of the public. Viewing any of them as "too right wing for the frontbench" is part of the problem.

There's others who are either in the centre of the party or its centre-right. I'd pick out Ed Miliband as the former and Lucy Powell as the latter. Yet Miliband was viewed by the public as very left wing (he's actually centre-left); Powell gets slagged off when she's VERY Labour.

There is, though, certainly a Labour right. It's these people who can be considered 'centrists': historically, those on the Labour right have naturally had a fair amount in common with the Tory left. Not the case nowadays though. Not given how far right the Tories are now.

Jess Phillips is left of centre on the spectrum. But her whole approach is to appear as a centrist: so it's been to constantly punch left. Yet even she is anything but a Tory. She's Labour through and through... but clearly Labour right.

Caroline Flint was an odd combination. A convinced Blairite, but also an implacable Leaver. And not someone ever to be messed with (someone I know once faced her in a courtroom and was terrified of her). She was on the right of the party before finally losing her seat.

Wes Streeting? Ensconced on the rapidly diminishing Labour right - and when it came to Corbyn, a wrecker. Liz Kendall was the "you are WAY over the line of where Labour should be" option in 2015. Streeting is WAY to the right of her. And a clear centrist on the spectrum.

Also centrist wreckers and on right of the party: Neil Coyle and Siobhain McDonagh. Like Streeting and Phillips, rent-a-quotes: only happy when sticking the boot in. See also: Margaret Hodge.

Being polite, it's extremely difficult for me to identify what is 'Labour' about Hodge

Yet we should note that, such has been the media narrative and Labour's inability to challenge it, the behaviour of the likes of Hodge or McDonagh didn't cost them at the election at all. Quite the reverse. The narrative means the public agrees with them, not us.

In the last Parliament, quite frankly, there WERE a few individuals who SHOULD have 'effed off and joined the Tories'. In particular: Ian Austin, John Woodcock and John Mann. Yet both Austin and Mann did know that the writing was on the red wall; which many of us ignored.

I don't give them any credit for that because they were all so unbelievably venal and desperate to bring Labour down. I found their conduct unforgivable. As I did with the likes of Joan Ryan or Angela 'funny tinge' Smith: the dishonourable member for the private water industry.

Other than maybe Mann, none of this last group of individuals really had any politics at all. All they were about was constant self-promotion and frantically trying to turn a drama into a crisis. It's people like them who give centrists such a bad name.

Happily, there's hardly any people like them left in the PLP now. Which overall, has moved way to the left of where it was in 2015. It's been shifted there by new MPs in (mostly) 2017 and 2019; Blairites retiring or losing their seats; and by Labour policy being transformed.

Corbyn's greatest legacy, by far, is that he won the argument within the party on policy. It was a rout. Now, all the leadership contenders want to maintain most of those policies; in substance, they're all weaker hues of him, not weaker hues of Blair as in 2015.

There is, incidentally, such a thing as a 'decent centrist'. It's just that they're all Tories or ex-Tories: Ken Clarke, Dominic Grieve, Heidi Allen, Sarah Wollaston.

But within the Labour Party, centrists are a dying breed. Just like the Lib Dems, they've destroyed themselves.

Going forward, other than the likes of Cooper, Benn or Creasy, I guess the most prominent figure on the Labour centre-right (or arguably right) may well be Rosena Allin-Khan. How she fares in the deputy race will be intriguing.

But she, too, is centre-left politically. She, too, is Labour through and through and anything but a Tory. And she, too, has plenty to offer.

What it comes down to is evaluating people on their merits, their talents. What they can offer Labour and how they can help us win.

Not constantly pigeonholing everyone and using a 1-word label to describe their entire careers. Yes, this thread has done exactly that... but I've done so in to show:

1. These labels are often a nonsense

2. So many of those we view as some Fifth Column are, very simply, Labour.

We need them. We need everyone I've mentioned if we are to win.

(Though Margaret: don't take this the wrong way, but I think we can do without your 'talents' to be honest).

PS. Here's three more quick additions:

- Ian Lavery: left of party, left of spectrum, and the closest thing to media stereotypes of the 'hard left'

- Barry Gardiner: left of party, probably more centre-left than left on spectrum. Great media performer.

- David Lammy. If we treat Starmer, Thornberry and Khan as a group - because there's barely a Rizla paper between them - Lammy's where they are too. And a fantastic, passionate orator and great guy who I'd LOVE to see in the Shadow Cabinet.