Labour’s leadership hopefuls are in for the toughest vetting of their careers – and it’s only a taste of what awaits

Editorial: They’ll be grilled about the NHS, Trident, economics, drugs, and their working class credentials, all while battling to make their party look credible again

Thus far, the Labour leadership election has barely registered in the public consciousness. No surprise there. With a Conservative government in command of a thumping majority and four years away from a general election, there is little urgency attached to who wins. The personalities involved are still, mostly, unknown to the voters. Partly, also, it is because the contest hasn’t been especially inspiring.

Away from the Twitterati, the public’s indifference is reflected in the small number of new supporters signing up to vote in the contest in recent days – 14,700 or so, set against the 112,000 and 180,000 newcomers who turned up for the Corbyn surges in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

The most heated argument is around whether the character Mark Darcy in the Bridget Jones books was based on Sir Keir Starmer (or, less likely, vice versa).