If you want to know why Jeremy Corbyn will win the Labour Leadership race, read todays Guardian

If you want to know why Jeremy Corbyn is ahead in the Labour Leadership race, simply pick up todays Guardian. There is a lovely article by Tony Blair claiming that if Corbyn wins it will destroy the Labour party.  For many people in the Labour party, this is highly amusing. Many would like to see Blair behind bars for his role in engaging the UK in the Iraq war, which was based on a whole tissue of lies and Blair was complicit in misleading Parliament about the case for participating. Since Blair left Parliament he has taken on all manner of lucrative roles generating millions of pounds. I personally don't blame him for making a few bob, but I hardly think such behaviour puts him in any position to lecture anyone about anything. Most Labour supporters I know find such an article completely repellant.

Of course I'd not recommend anyone to vote simply on a knee jerk reaction to Blair, tempting thought that may be. The second reason comes in a very long and very boring article about Yvette Coooper. The article sums up everything about why Cooper would be a lousy leader of the Labour Party. She had a massive article to make her case and guess what? There is nothing in there which constitutes anything like a reason to vote for Cooper. Whilst Corbyn says "This is what I believe in, this is what I'll do, this is what I stand for", Cooper can't even manage a compelling case for not voting Corbyn, let alone attempt to tell us why she should be leader. The closest thing to a reason was that she "held her own in debates with Theresa May".

Only Liz Kendall has managed to present anything like a case for being leader. She seems to know what she stands for, however Labour seems to have had quite enough of that. When the candidates were first announced, I assumed that Burnham would win. He seemes pugnacious and well briefed. As the contest has developed, he has been a man revealed as scared of his own shadow. He is scared to attack Corbyn because he knows Corbyn is chiming with activists. At the same time he is not prepared to make a case for his Blairite tendencies. Whilst people hate two faced polictians, Burnham has become something even worse. He is "no faced". Cooper and Burnham's pitch seems to be "Vote for me because I'm marvellous, I have no policies and can't explain why I am the best, but just look at my lovely charisma". The sad thing is that this mythical Charisma is just that.

I've met Jeremy Corbyn a few times. He has always been supportive of the causes I've championed in Barnet. He always struck me as serious, well informed and grounded. He has figured out something which few politicians get. Like Boris, he has realised that whilst mud sticks, it only bothers you if you let it. We all know Boris has dodgy connections, is a philanderer, doesn't do detail and can be a bit of bully. All of these things are normally poison to Tory politicians, but Boris just says "That's how I am, get over it". When people call Corbyn names, like a Judo expert, he rolls with the punch and uses his attackers momentum against him.  I suspect that if Tony Blair had said "I really admire Jeremy Corbyn for being a man of principle, I wanted to appoint him to the cabinet to keep us all honest, but Gordon wouldn't let me" it would have done more harm to Corbyn than his anti-endorsement

"This is not a moment to refrain from disturbing the serenity of the walk on the basis it causes ‘disunity’. It is a moment for a rugby tackle, if that were possible.”

I almost wonder if Blair secretly wants Corbyn to win, so ridiculous were his comments. He is not a fool, so maybe he realises that an anti endorsement is the best thing he can give a candidate.

It is quite interesting to note that Miliband changed the way a leader was selected to try and ensure that the wider party were engaged and taken into account. this was a noble and honourable intention and it has succeeded. After years of decline, people are flocking to join the party. There are all sorts of pundits claiming that Corbyn will destroy the party, if this were true, why is it swamped with new members? There are also the claims that these are entryists, Tories, Greens, Trotskyites and God knows what elese. This ignores the fact that the vast majority of Labour activists, the hard working people who do the work and don't become MP's, want a leader who inspires them and who has a bit of backbone. Whatever you may think of Corbyn, he has backbone. He has stood alone for causes and been proven right on numerous occasions. I am well aware that he has also got some major shouts wrong, but unlike Blair, he hasn't lead us into a war that has set the world alight and has caused all manner of risks that never existed before.

The sad legacy of Blair and Bush is that after 9/11 they could have sorted out Al Quada and made the world a safer place. Their dodgy adventure in Iraq destroyed the credibility and trust of most of the third world for the west.  Whoever may give Corbyn a lecture and there are cetrainly some who could and should, Blair is not one of them.

I have been saying it since Corbyn entered the race. If any of his opponents want to stop him, they need to make a compelling case as to why they are the best leader. If they simply throw mud at Corbyn, they will fail. For most of us, when we see a man covered in mud, the one thing we recognise is a man who works hard and is not afraid to get stuck in. It is those in the shiny suits we need to be wary of.