Rebecca Long-Bailey has ended weeks of speculation as she said she is 'considering standing' for the Labour leadership. Ian Lavery is also weighing up a run for the top job.

The outgoing leader used his New Year message to rail against billionaires and champion the 'movement' he built, but failed to address his party's cataclysmic election UK election defeat.

Yvette Cooper is set to pull out of the Labour leadership race amid fears she cannot win. One friend told the Mail she was likely to withdraw as she feared being punished by Jeremy Corbyn's supporters.

The centrist shadow Brexit secretary would beat Rebecca Long Bailey by 61 per cent to 39 per cent in a run-off for the UK Labour party leadership, according to the YouGov survey.

Mr Corbyn accused the US president of carrying out 'an extremely serious and dangerous escalation of conflict' after the rocket strike which killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.

Jeremy Corbyn last night refused four times to say Qassem Soleimani was a terrorist - and also described the Iranian general's killing by the US as 'illegal' . 

Laura Smith and Karen Lee both spoke of their need to find a new source of income after they lost their Crew & Nantwich and Lincoln seats to the Tories on December 12.

Some 42 per cent of more than 5,000 people surveyed by YouGov gave the outgoing leader a zero rating after he led his party to an election humiliation in December.

Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said she would unveil a package of radical constitutional measures if she won the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.

Emily Thornberry today vowed to be an 'unashamedly socialist' Labour leader if she takes over from Jeremy Corbyn as she also pledged to quit if she did badly in the top job.

In a defiant riposte, she hinted that her concerns had been 'misrepresented' in a bid to damage her bid to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.

Jess Phillips acknowledged it was 'very difficult' for people to stand back from the contest, but warned it would be 'embarrassing' if Labour elected another man to its top job.

The Conservatives now have a massive 17-point advantage over Labour, according to the latest research by Opinium - up from around 12 points at the election.

Labour's membership has grown by more than 100,000 since the party's devastating general election loss.

A YouGov poll found 71 per cent of them have a favourable view of Mr Corbyn. Second on 70 per cent was Ed Miliband, another election loser, while John Smith came third on 67 per cent.

The Wigan MP said the beleaguered party should be focusing on getting rid of Tory MPs rather than their own following Jeremy Corbyn's humiliating defeat to Boris Johnson in December's election.

Rebecca Long-Bailey told an event she had been left in a 'state of shock' by the scale of their defeat on December 12, when Labour handed Boris Johnson an 80-seat Tory majority.

Six weeks after the dramatic election victory, YouGov research put the Conservatives on 49 per cent, far ahead of their main rivals on 29 per cent.

Analysis of the party's 80-seat defeat - its worst since 1935 - blamed Brexit policy, attacks by the media and even the lingering impact of Tony Blair's leadership in northern seats it lost.

The left-wing candidate to replace Jeremy Corbyn told an event at the weekend how she worked until 3am in 2016 after the resignation of Robert Marris left the party's treasury team in the lurch.

ANDREW PIERCE: As he plods painfully through his six questions, there is an embarrassed silence on the Labour benches. Some Labour MPs say there is a way out.

Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy and Emily Thornberry were on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme this morning and were taken to task by 'Jay', a former Labour voter.

More than half of Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) which backed Mr Corbyn in the leadership contest in 2015 have endorsed soft-left candidate Sir Keir Starmer this year.

The outgoing leader, who led Labour to its worst election defeat since the 1930s in December, spoke as he toured areas affected by flooding in Wales this afternoon.

The former prime minister used a speech this morning to mark the creation of the Labour Party to criticise the current state of the political vehicle which he led to three election victories.

Sir Keir Starmer backed readmitting Alastair Campbell, who was kicked out by Jeremy Corbyn's allies after admitting he voted for the Liberal Democrats in European elections.

Lisa Nandy tonight blasted Sir Keir Starmer and labelled his Brexit policy a 'disaster' as she tried to salvage her Labour leadership campaign.

Thousands of members of the public voted for the 150 finalists to face the judges, who included the Labour MP Carolyn Harris, Conservative MP David Warburton and journalist Ash Sarkar.

Labour's 500,000-plus members want to ditch the Monarchy and deny their party has a problem with anti-Semitism, a shocking poll by YouGov has revealed.

ANDREW PIERCE: In an interview with student newspaper Varsity in 2002, when he was chairman of the Labour group at Cambridge University, he backed the UK joining the euro.

Jeremy Corbyn and senior medical leaders tore into Boris Johnson's response as a senior ministers said they were now doing 8,000 tests a day and production would double within the next fortnight.

Seb Corbyn, the Labour leader's second son and an aide to shadow chancellor John McDonnell, is taking the precautionary measure as the pandemic sweeps the country.

HENRY DEEDES: As Sir Lindsay Hoyle called time on Prime Minister's Questions, Jeremy Corbyn uncrossed his legs, wrinkled his nose and breathed a little sigh of relief.

The outgoing Labour leader told the BBC he had been vindicated by the governments spending plans to tackle the havoc wreaked on the UK economy by the coronavirus outbreak.

The man expected to become Labour leader on Saturday also revealed his local pub is his 'church' and that he may have been the model for Colin Firth's dapper character in Bridget Jones Diary.

Mr Miliband has been brought back as shadow business secretary as Sir Keir announced a second wave of changes after replacing Jeremy Corbyn.

New Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer has spent his first week on the job culling hard-left members of the Labour Shadow Cabinet, much to the anger of Momentum.

Politicians taking part in Prime Minister's Questions from the safety and comfort of their own homes were upstaged by their grandchildren and their interior design sense - or lack of it.

Jeremy Corbyn's brother, Piers, has spearheaded an anti-lockdown protest where he claimed drug companies were 'suppressing information' on a cure for coronavirus 'because they want to impose a vaccine.'

In part one of Sky News documentary Bad Blood/New Blood Turnbull ally Craig Laundy claimed Finance Minister Matthias Cormann's signing of the petition sealed the former PM's fate.

The image of Malcolm Turnbull sitting on a Sydney train has attracted over 400 comments with many praising the man worth an estimated $200 million for roughing it with the masses.

The former prime minister and ex-Liberal Party leader shared a photo of Sydney shrouded in a haze of bushfire smoke as he flew back into the city following a speaker trip to Singapore.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull served lunch to homeless people on Christmas Day. The 65-year-old handed out free meals with all the trimmings at Sydney charity Wayside Chapel.

Malcolm Turnbull has blasted former political ally Mathias Cormann as 'weak and treacherous' for his key role in the leadership spill which ousted him as Prime Minister.

Sydney radio 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones wants the Liberal Party to expel former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull for suggesting it was 'nuts' to build a taxpayer-funded, coal-fired power station.

Mr Turnbull claims in his new memoir that his successor Mr Morrison 'was playing a double game' to force him out of office.

Malcolm Turnbull says a cabal of media moguls conspired with right-wing Liberals led by Tony Abbott to bring down his government - so Mr Abbott could bring the Coalition back to victory in 2022.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has suggested his bitter predecessor Tony Abbott's chief-of-staff Peta Credlin 'owned' and 'dominated' her former boss.

The former prime minister described the comments as 'odious', but used the opportunity to heap praise on Peta Credlin rather than criticise Mr Turnbull.

In his tell-all memoir A Bigger Picture, Mr Turnbull suggested Ms Credlin 'dominated' Mr Abbott during his two years as PM until September 2015.