A please as always to write for @labourlist.bsky.social. Get in touch with your thoughts:

labourlist.org/2025/11/bond...

Thanks to @politico.eu for covering it in today's Playbook even with Caerphilly dominating the news...

Though all the more reason to look at how and why many former Labour voters are prepared to think the unthinkable - and what can be done to fight back.

Read more here - including glimmers of hope for Labour, with even Reform-tempted voters far more balanced and conflicted on immigration and wary of Farage than headline polls and most papers suggest:

labourlist.org/2025/10/labo...

Motives sometimes remain a mystery to campaign teams, though, and perhaps even candidates themselves.

As one aide puts it: “Sometimes when a job comes up, you think ‘I should do this’ – and then you work out why. Some candidates start before they’re sure why.”

Then there’s the desire to “fly the flag for the tradition I come from”, as @richardburgon.bsky.social puts it , with the Socialist Campaign Group always fielding candidates.

Murray was likewise a “standard-bearer of the moderate wing”, one insider says.

@bellribeiroaddy.bsky.social wanted to champion members and “prove there’s a strong progressive base within the party”.

@ianmurraymp.bsky.social wanted to make sure Scotland was part of the debate.

@harrietharman.bsky.social entered as she “couldn’t bear the idea of an all-male beauty contest”.

The role’s ambiguity is not necessarily negative, too, with candidates sensing they can make it their own.

Most politicians want to be listened to, and it offers a “platform to be heard”, in cabinet or not, McGregor notes.

There are many more reasons candidates do run, though.

Everyone interviewed relished engaging with so many members. Creasy calls it “incredible”.

Spending so long together quickly thaws the ice between campaigns too. “You wouldn’t guess who got on best backstage,” one recalls of a past contest.

On the job itself, Matthew McGregor, who ran Cruddas’ campaign, calls the job itself “arduous”, with the deputy countless people’s “port of call” for campaign days and fundraisers.

There's no powers beyond sitting on Labour’s NEC, and being consulted “regularly” by the leader.

Wooing colleagues is exposing, too. “Some were scathing, especially if trying to put you off,” one campaign aide recalls.

Women face more particular obstacles. “Men are seen as healthily ambitious, women as self-promoters. It’s like ‘how dare she’”, says one former candidate.

Many MPs wanted “brownie points voting Bridget,” one rival campaign source claims. 85 MPs curiously didn’t nominate at all.

Aspiring candidates know colleagues “want to back winners, or someone likely to do well against them”, a past campaign staffer notes.

Another hurdle is nominations.

@richardburgon.bsky.social (2020 candidate) says doubling the threshold to 10% of MPs in 2021, and the mere week MPs had to reach it, are a deterrent to stop the left.

He claims @bellribeiroaddy.bsky.social may have progressed with the old rules and a longer window.

Bridget is juggling cabinet, too. Peter Hain calls running in 2007 as a senior minister “one of the biggest mistakes” he made in politics.

Simultaneously handling power-sharing negotiations in Northern Ireland and Welsh devolution, he “didn’t keep enough focus on the campaign”.