Another nominations problem waiting to happen?

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

The BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg is reporting that the window for nominations for the Labour leadership will now be extended to June 9th, after a number of people – including Ed Miliband, Jon Cruddas, Will Straw, Sunder Katwala and myself – expressed concern that the previous agreement to close the window on May 27th was too short.

But it looks like there’s more trouble brewing over nominations – for the next mayoral election, in 2012. Andrew Gilligan is reporting:

“Nominations for Labour’s candidate for Mayor of London will “probably” close within the month and the successful candidate will be in place “by this September,” according to a Labour Party spokesman.

“The accelerated timetable makes it much more likely that the only runner so far declared, Ken Livingstone, will be Labour’s candidate. Other heavyweights considering standing may not be ready or willing to throw their hats into the ring so early.”

As the Evening Standard showed this week, there are lots of great potential candidates for the London mayoralty – Ken, David Lammy, Alan Johnson, James Purnell and others – and of course, the selection process should be fair, open and inclusive. As with the leadership, there should be no rush towards selecting a candidate, or perception that there might be a “stitch up”. And with the mayorai elections still two years away, there’s still plenty of time to complete the process properly. Many have suggested that this could even be an opportunity for Labour to experiment with primaries.

I’m a fan of Ken’s – and I might vote for him come the selection, who knows? The point is, it’s too early to say, or to make a judgement. But as with the party leadership, I want to see a contest, so that Labour selects the best possible candidate.