You want a leadership contest? Or at least a contest about leadership? Well, the Guardian's laying one on. And it's contest with towering, inspirational giants, with not a single careerist second-rater on the ballot paper.
I'm talking about the Guardian's "Labour's greatest hero" debate, which is taking place at lunchtime. I'll be live blogging on it here from 1pm.
We contacted Labour MPs and asked them to name a hero. Michael White wrote about it in the paper last week.
The top four names made it onto the shortlist and at the debate a senior Labour figure will be making the case for each one.
David Blunkett will be championing Clement Attlee; Ed Balls, Aneurin Bevan; Fiona Mactaggart, Barbara Castle; and the peer and historian Kenneth O Morgan will be doing the honours for Keir Hardie.
Blunkett, Balls and Morgan have also written articles about Attlee, Bevan and Hardie for theguardian.com.
Patricia Hewitt has written the one for Castle, but her place at the debate is being taken by Mactaggart because she can't be there.
It should be a treat. Polly Toynbee will be chairing and at the end she will be announcing the results of the MPs' poll.
12.55pm: I'm in the front row and the room is filling up. There must be about 250 people here. Our audio team are recording this and later this afternoon they should be inserting some audio links into this blog, so that you can hear clips from all four speakers.
1.05pm: I see that quite a few of my journalist colleagues from other papers are here. I'm not sure whether this will produce a news story, but Blunkett hasn't been saying much recently, Balls is usually good copy and it's hard to discuss the past without making some reference to Labour's current problems. So maybe we will get a news line too.
Balls has arrived and so now everyone's here. Polly's calling the room to order.
Polly says she will kick off in chronological order. So we'll start with Kenneth Morgan on Hardie.
"Men and women, that was how Keir Hardie began his speeches," Morgan says. "Without him, none of the others would have been in a Labour government."
Morgan says he largely created a new party, "he created us". He was "a great strategist, a great evangelist". It was a workers' party, but not just a workers' party. He brought in the middle classes to blend the classes "into one human family".
Hugh Dalton was captivated at Cambridge by the way Hardie stood up to "Bullingdon Club types".
Hardie supported feminism. Every feminist in the room should vote for him, because he was an ally of the Pankhursts. He supported women as women, but also as workers and mothers.
1.15pm: 'm in the front row and the room is filling up. There must be about 250 people here. Our audio team are recording this and later this afternoon they should be inserting some audio links into this blog, so that you can hear clips from all four speakers.
I see that quite a few of my journalist colleagues from other papers are here. I'm not sure whether this will produce a news story, but Blunkett hasn't been saying much recently, Balls is usually good copy and it's hard to discuss the past without making some reference to Labour's current problems. So maybe we will get a news line too.
Balls has arrived and so now everyone's here. Polly's calling the room to order.
Polly says she will kick off in chronological order. So we'll start with Kenneth Morgan on Hardie.
"Men and women, that was how Keir Hardie began his speeches," Morgan says. "Without him, none of the others would have been in a Labour government."
Morgan says he largely created a new party, "he created us". He was "a great strategist, a great evangelist". It was a worker's party, but not just a workers' party. He brought in the middle classes to blend the classes "into one human family".
Hugh Dalton was captivated at Cambridge by the way Hardie stood up to "Bullingdon Club types".
Hardie supported feminism. Every feminist in the room should vote for him, because he was an ally of the Pankhursts. He supported women as women, but also as workers and mothers.
He defended civil liberties. "We were a civil liberties party in those days, comrades." Knowing laughter from the audience.
He was also in favour of devolution and colonial freedom. He visited India in 1907 and said India should be run by the Indians. An astonishing statement at the time. He said South Africa should be for the Africans.
Morgan quotes a historian(?) saying of Hardie "the man and his gospel were indispensable". He goes on: "His simplicity and his socialism and his democracy made our world."
Morgan has a rich, Welsh voice. It was a tremendous speech.
Blunkett starts now, with a limerick about Attlee. Attlee was "deeply mis-stated and often understimated".
He tells the story about how Attlee hurried off to the palace to become PM in 1945, forestalling a plot against him.
Attlee "literally got on the Norman Tebbit bike" selling the 1911 Welfare Act.
Blunkett says Attlee was a leader for 20 years, and that he ran the country while Churchill was fighting the war (Attlee was deputy PM in the coalition government).
"My pitch for him is delivery, delivery, delivery," Blunkett says.
Listing the problems the Attlee government faced, Blunkett points out that even the weather was atrocious (There was a terrible winter, in 1947, I think.)
In delivering the welfare state, and building the NHS, the Attlee government "transformed the hopes and aspirations of those who had been desperate in the 1930s". They discovered the virtues of collective ownership long before the Republicans in the US (a Comrade Hank Paulson joke).
Balls is up now. Blunkett had mentioned the fact that Bevan resigned from the Labour government. "It's clear that my candidate is the one to have a pop at - but that's enough modern parallels," Balls says.
1.15pm: Balls says that first of all Bevan was a great orator.
Bevan had to conquer a stammer to make great speeches. (So that's why Balls chose him. Balls has had a mild problem with stammering himself. I should have guessed.)
Bevan was expelled from the party once, Balls says. Morgan corrects him - it wsa three times.
He deserves to win "because of his determination and drive and passion". He founded the NHS in the teeth of oppostion, "probably the greatest achievement of a Labour government in power".
He was a pragmatist, who knew that to achieve progress you had to be in power.
He was the man who said "the language of socialism is the language of priorities".
1.20pm: Balls says that Hardie and Attlee were great, but where were the Hardie-ites and the Attlee-ites? But Bevan had followers. Castle was a Bevanite, as was Wilson. And Brown and Blair were Bevanites, Balls says. (I never heard Blair call himself a Bevanite, but I suppose Balls must have heard it.)
1.20pm: Mactaggart starts with a plug for Anne Perkins' much-admired Castle biography.
One of Castle's sayings was 'in politics, guts is everything". Mactaggart says that's a good message for Labour now.
Castle changed politics for women. She brought in the Equal Pay Act, "sneaking it in" by raising the issue during a finance bill debate.
1.25pm: She invented child benefit. And, against opposition, she insisted the money was paid to women.
"Margaret Thatcher wasn't the first woman who could lead Britain. Barbara Castle was the first woman who could lead Britain."
Mactaggart says the other heroes were famous for one thing. But "women can multitask".
She created the international development department, she saved 20,000 lives through the breathalyser, and she saved 60,000 lives through the introduction of seat belts.
And she introduced Serps, the state earnings-related pension scheme, which benefited women enormously.
1.30pm: I thought Mactaggart probably had the hardest task. But my impression is that she made the best speech.
Polly is asking the panel to question each other now.
Blunkett wants to quiz Balls. Bevan was someone prepared to "cop out" just before a general election. What does Balls say to that?
it was a bad election defeat, 1951. It was an election where the Guardian backed the Tories, he says (changing the subject - always a good tactic when you're under attack). May it never happen again, he says.
Morgan comes in to say that Hardie was a multi-tasker too. And Bevan never had anything to say about education. Ed is right to say that Bevan was well-regarded in the history books - "I wrote one of them," Morgan jokes.
Above all, Bevan was not a Bevanite. He was not interested in schisms.
Blunkett asks if Morgan is championing Bevan or Hardie.
Blunkett says one of his sons is called Andrew Keir. Morgan says his son is called Keir too.
Balls says it would not be the first time "the -ites have frustrated the person they're following". Not quite sure whom he's having a go at. I guess the Blairites, not the Brownites, of whom he's still the cheerleader.
1.35pm: Mactaggart says Bevan's followers, faced with Castle, were "more likely to look up her skirt than follow her". Blunkett says anyone looking up her skirt would have had a knee in the groin.
The first questioner stands up. His son's also called Keir. He says that two years ago, at the party conference, Labour should have acknowledged the 150th anniversary of his birth.
A second delegate defends Attlee, whom he actually met.
1.40pm: A peace campaigner stands up to tell us he shared a platform with Ramsay Macdonald. Wow. But he was a baby at the time, he says. He goes on to say he doesn't approve of hero worship. It's always good to hear a contrarian. He's starting to plug his conference stand now, and Polly interrupts him.
Greg Rosen, chair of the Labour history group, mentions Bevan's capacity to divide. But he also had a capacity to unite. In 1959 he delivered a great speech against Macmillan, who was similar to David Cameron, Rosen suggests.
Anyone for Barbara Castle, Polly asks?
1.45pm: A women stands up to say that when she joined the party she wore a page saying "women delegates make policy, not tea". Men needed reminding, she says.
Polly wants to know who speaks most to the Labour party now. Good question.
1.50pm: Morgan says Hardie was an "ethical socialist". Never has the case for that been stronger than now, given the "collapse of capitalism in the last few days". (I'm not sure it has collapsed completely, but I know what Morgan means.)
Hardie senses that the "democracy" of democratic socialism was as important as the "socialism". He's putting in a pitch for the Castle vote now, saying anyone tempted to vote for her should back Hardie because of what he did for feminism.
Balls says that in his household no one suggests that women don't make policy. (He's married to Yvette Cooper.) There are other great Labour women. Ellen Wilkinson was the education secretary in Attlee's government (and Herbert Morrisson's mistress, Morgan points out.)
At a time when the case for a free health service is not accepted in other parts of the world, like Africa, Bevan's belief in a health service free at the point of use is more relevant than ever. It's essential to meeting the millennium development goals. Good answer.
Mactaggart says the Castle concept of a "social wage" is a really important one today. But she's going to put another argument. People get involved in politics because they want to make a difference.
But modern politics is sometimes very "bland". It makes people think politics is cynical. But Castle showed that you can make a difference, even if you're going to "go down in flames".
1.50pm: Blunkett says his heart is with Hardie, but his head is with Attlee.
Modern politics is short of people who can make good speeches, partly because the way people campaign has changed.
Although no one could pretend that Attlee was an inspiring orator, his modesty led to him having a lot to be immodest about.
I suppose someone could take that as a Gordon Brown endorsement.
Blunkett has just told a funny joke about Bernard Crick and Bevan, but it revolves around a stammer, and I can't really do it justice in print, I'm afraid. (Do we still say "in print" in cyberspace? "In text" sounds daft. You know what I mean.)
1.55pm: Polly wants to know how the heroes would survive in the modern age. Blunkett says that his candidate, Attlee, was the only one not to have had any extra-marital affairs.
Mactaggart says 24hour TV would have led to Castle spending too much time in the make-up room.
Balls says Hardie was never a good parliamentarian, and that Attlee could not have handled the modern media. He thinks Bevan could have adjusted to the modern media. He was "a passionate advocate for unity and taking the fight to the Tories". That's the message for the day.
1.55pm: Morgan says Hardie would not have been great on the Today progamme and that he wouldn't have been good as a spin doctor. But he was great because he had a force of moral character. He was comparable to Nelson Mandela.
It's polling time.
2.05pm: Hardie got more than Attlee and Bevan. There's a show of hands. Someone is counting them. Castle doesn't get many either.
Hardie must have won. But Polly's going to read the results of the MPs' poll first.
Eighty eight MPs responded. Attlee won. Bevan came second, Hardie third.
And now Polly is reading out the votes of his audience
Hardie came first. Bevan second, Castle third and Attlee fourth.
I've got the full results now.
MPs' first. There were 88 replies. Their top 10 were: Attlee (42); Bevan (40); Hardie (33); Castle (32); Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair (27 each); Harold Wilson (24); John Smith (16); RH Tawney (9); and Anthony Crosland and Tony Benn (8 each).
(The MPs were allowed to nominate more than one hero, obviously.)
But members of the audience here weren't. Hardie got 130 votes, Bevan 42, Castle 33 and Attlee 29.
2.10pm: Interesting that Attlee came top of the MPs' poll, and bottom of the audience one. "It shows how out of touch MPs are," said a man sitting nearby. But I suppose they might have been swayed by the debate. Morgan sounded a bit like a moralistic prophet (having a go, for example, at the government's civil liberties record). The other panellists were more constrained.
4pm update: A colleague has been checking the figures from our poll and we've noticed that Gordon Brown got eight votes too. So Anthony Crosland, Tony Benn and Gordon Brown are in joint 10th place with eight votes each.
