Labour Leadership - vote for 1, get 5?

Labour members have had to vote for 1 of the 5 Labour leadership candidates. It's a shame they can't select all 5 because a composite Frankenstein leader would be unstoppable:

• David M for brains and to stick with Blair's 3rd way
• Ed M to be humble, apologise for mistakes and make changes where necessary
• Andy Burnham to be "ordinary bloke" to appeal to the masses in the way Blair did
• Ed Balls to be the attack dog to savage the other parties
• Diane to appeal to the under-represented in policies & add a bit of left-wing spice

What chance of the winner having all 4 losers in the Shadow Cabinet?

Despite Ed M coming up the inside track, I reckon his older brother will pip him to the post.

Campaign

Watch an innocent and naive newcomer fight opponents, his own side & even his own wife to try and win in a few weeks.

A cliched fantasy film?

No, the story of a Japanese council election!! No, it's not boring, really. Before you go to YouTube to watch kittens savaging woollen balls , check out Campaign! The Kawasaki Candidate.

In Kazuhiro Soda's first feature length film, he follows an old student friend, Kazuhiko Yamauchi, who was plucked out of obscurity as a Tokyoite coin and stamp dealer and parachuted into a Kawaski council election where defeat would hand control to the opposition Democratic party.

This would be a coup as his party, the Liberals (LDP) has been in national government for nearly all of the last 50 years.

It's a real-life Being There comboed with Mr Smith Goes to Washington.

During the film, we see Yamauchi's wife complain that she has to call herself his housewife rather than his wife. She also gets stroppy when she's told that she should leave her job to help her husband's future, particularly when he has to pay for all election expenses himself.

The workings of the LDP are exposed when we realise that he's a pawn who's there to fill a bye-election vacancy and when the main elections occur in 2 years, he'll be without support.
If he gets elected, he'd have to recruit his own supporters and raise money. He compares the LDP to the military and moans about all the criticism he's getting including the angle of his bows. This is crucial as he is commanded to bow to telephone poles. When he says he is "pissed off", is this atypical Japanese frankness or a hyperbolic interpreter?

Find out what happened after the election [spoilers].

There is a gratuitous moment which has no relevance to the film: a packed commuter train gets going after 4 train "pushers" cram overhanging passengers so that the doors can shut.

Campaign! The Kawasaki Candidate is part of the Why Democracy? project to start a global conversation about democracy. This version is about 50 min long. The DVD, titled "Campaign", with the theatrical version, is 120 min long and can be bought from Film Baby.