Well, we shall know soon who is to be Labour’s new standard bearer.

Thank goodness this long, debilitating contest is all over.

I voted for Diane Abbott and my second choice, Ed Miliband.

The pundits and the bookies tell us Diane won’t win – or even come close.

Who knows?

Perhaps there is more support for her out there than the bookies are picking up on their radar.

Anyway… I want her to get a half decent vote and, on the strength of it, a place in the Shadow Cabinet.

During the Blair Brown years independent voices were shamefully thin on the ground in a Cabinet that was stuffed full of appointed placemen and women.

We need people like Diane Abbott who are not afraid to speak out when others, career minded and lobotomised, stay silent and follow their Leader.

For Party Treasurer, I voted for Diana Holland rather than the (off camera grumpy) Lord Prescott who simply refuses to go away.

I recall the last time Prescott stood for election – as Leader of the Labour Delegation to the human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe.

When Broon took over, Prescott stood down as Deputy Prime Minister and looked around for something suitable to fill the void in his life.

There was a vacancy on the Labour Delegation to the Council of Europe – for Leader no less - and he was eyeing it up.

We met as a delegation in Portcullis House at Westminster in July 2007 to talk about the mechanism for electing a new Leader to take over from Tony Lloyd who had been doubling up as Chair of the PLP.

Christine McCafferty, the excellent MP for Calder Valley, was widely tipped as Tony’s successor. She was able and popular and had been doing great work on the social health and family committee. She had my support.

I took the view it was time for a woman with Christine’s credentials to lead the delegation.

Not long into the meeting, and out of the blue, came a proposal to move to an immediate election – with one candidate’s name put forward.

Whoa! I say. No way! We need a period for nominations and a proper ballot. We can’t allow this!

Prescott was sitting there like a huge beef mountain. Saying nothing. Just scowling.

The vote tied 8-8 and we met again a fortnight later when Prescott, having got all his ducks in a row, got what he wanted by 12 votes to 8.

To be fair (and saying that sometimes hurts) my spies tell me that Prescott did a good job.

But we shall never know if Christine McCafferty would have done a better one.

I’d like to think so.