Inevitably the Labour leadership contenders have found themselves compelled to be tribal, as they are having to appeal to the Labour "tribe" who will be voting for them next month.Their main angle of attack is the Coalition Government, and in particular the Liberal Democrats, both within the Cabinet and (as per Ed Miliband's invitation to join Labour, over the weekend) the wider party.
Mike Smithson at Political Betting notes that this is having the effect of bringing the Lib Dems closer together, rallying around their leadership. As he notes, the same happened within Labour when Gordon Brown was being so heavily attacked a while back; so it isn't exactly a great surprise.
Overall, then, the Labour Five are in a kind of side contest to see who can be nastiest (even in a slimy and back-handed way) to the Lib Dems, but the side-effect is a strengthening of that party's internal structure (despite the rumours that the same Ed Miliband's campaign team were putting about, again over this past weekend) and, my extension, of the coalition.
WHen all this is over, though, we must all remember how each and every one of those five behaved, especially the victor of the contest who will presumably have been at least one of the nastiest of the contenders.
Should such a person ever be allowed to become Prime Minister?
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