The Threshold Required?

Jamie Driscoll is a proven election-winner, whereas Keir Starmer is as yet untested. But if you were wondering who was now going to be the Labour candidate for Mayor of the North East, then the BBC has usefully provided a photograph of her.

Labour's candidate against Ben Houchen in 2021, so also under Starmer, had at least previously been employed by Ken Loach, but hey ho. You can be on more than one local electoral register, so someone in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, or County Durham must be able to put up Ken in a spare room for this purpose and field him for Mayor.

Ken is no stranger to the North East. His last three films have been made and set here, he has spoken at the Durham Miners' Gala, and he is shown here in Newcastle in 2016, at an event compèred by Jamie.

Kim McGuinness is the right-wing Labour machine personified, complete with never having been employed outside politics. There are vague noises about "educational and environmental charities". We all know what that means.

Unpictured in the above link, although they are lucky to be named, are the other two people on the Labour longlist. Paul Brannen is 60, an old trouper who has lost twice as many elections as he has ever won. Not for want of trying, he has never managed to be re-elected to anything.

As a Newcastle City Councillor, Nicu Ion is the first Roma migrant ever to have been elected in the United Kingdom. But if that did not disqualify him in Starmer's eyes, then his Facebook cover photograph, which shows him with Jesse Jackson, will make him lucky to retain Labour Party membership at all.

All four of them, these three longlisters and Jamie, either are or have been members of Newcastle City Council. They all still live in Newcastle. McGuinness has never lived anywhere else.