Catherine West now on Radio 4 saying Keir Starmer could win a leadership election and not ruling out voting for him

NEW: Leadership timelines: ** There is no contest at the moment, and will not be until 81 names are submitted to the NEC ** Wes Streeting has specifically asked for a long contest, that allows Andy Burnham to stand. ** If this happens, this is likely to mean it concludes around conference at the end of September ** In the first instance, No10 likely to emphasise there is no contest underway. But if it formally begins, will No10 press for a quicker resolution - the PM could make the argument it's in the national interest to get this over with. ** Andy Burnham could forward with a constituency name today; if he triggers the contest, then nominations would have to stay open for 6/7 weeks while he gets an MP - if he wins the vote ** Some NEC members want Team Burnham to put forward a plan for the Manchester Metro Mayor job that doesn't involve installing a sitting MP. Gary Neville is a name that some talk about, but I'm told he may not have been approaches so could be utterly wishful thinking.

hard to see how anything constructive can ever come out of this now if both sides are taking legal action against one another...

annoyingly i was just putting the finishing touches to a 10-page article with the full inside story of the project so far (informed by various internal documents, minutes, etc and the full Organising Committee WhatsApp chat archives), and now i may have to rewrite half of it