‘Plenty of candidates ready to take place of leader’

LABOUR HAS “plenty” of potential leaders waiting in the wings should Jeremy Corbyn choose to stand down, the party’s new election coordinator has said.

Ian Lavery said polling on shadow cabinet members was carried out in Manchester ahead of the upcoming mayoral election and such research was not “uncommon”.

Rising party stars including Angela Rayner and Rebecca Long-Bailey were said to have been assessed for popularity as part of internal “succession planning”, according to The Sunday Times.

Mr Lavery said: “The reality about polls is that it’s not uncommon for any political party to conduct these political polls in order to establish a clear reasoning, understand the various different views in a particular point in time.”

He said: “There’s plenty of leaders to pick from if and when Jeremy decides, of his own volition, that it’s not for him at the election. That isn’t the case at this point in time.”

Earlier, Labour deputy leader Tom Watson urged Mr Corbyn to improve his popularity ratings.

A national newspaper also suggested leaked documents gave a scathing assessment of the embattled Labour leader, who was found to be “boring” and “fed up” by focus groups.

It also cited polling in the leaked document that rated veteran left-winger Mr Corbyn as the least popular of all current party leaders, including Ukip’s Paul Nuttall, who is standing in the upcoming Stoke-on-Trent central by-election.

Mr Watson denied his party was road testing leadership candidates on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show. “There were a range of shadow cabinet members that were so-called road tested, this is what we do in our normal run of political consultations.”