Who will lead Labour's Star Trek convention? Spock or Sulu

 Watching the five Labour leadership candidates enter the final straight this week,  I couldn’t help remembering David Cameron’s wicked quip about a Star Trek convention.  There is indeed a hint of the Starship Enterprise with David Miliband as Mr Spock - austere, rational, borderline autistic,  and Ed Balls as Captain Kirk - bumptious, over-promoted, lacking emotional intelligence.  Diane Abbott is of course  Uhura, interjecting every now and then from left field and being largely ignored. I see Ed Miliband as navigator Lieutenant Sulu, who knows the way ahead but sometimes has difficulty explaining it..  Andy Burnham, like Ensign Pavel, is the one whose name no one can remember. 

  The Labour hopefuls shouldn’t be too bothered -  the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, always regarded it as a political allegory.  Nevertheless, the sense that the entire leadership cadre of New Labour are not on the planet is something of a handicap in an election race before a very down to earth media. But what is it about the Labour leadership candidates that makes them seem just a little other-wordly?  I think it stems from the fact that all five are essentially policy wonks, career politicians who've risen to prominence in a party that has lost touch with  any kind of mass popular movement.