Heads they win, tails we lose?

We will soon find out if the new Labour project is going to stagger on or finally fall down into its well-paid ditch.

If David Miliband's Stars-In-Their-Eyes performance - "tonight Matthew, I'm going to be Tony Blair" - wins Labour members' votes, the project is still on.

If Ed Miliband gets through on second preferences, then we might just get a dash of moderate social democracy instead of aggressive neoliberalism in the opposition.

For those of us nostalgic for a party that actually had some principles to sell out, an Ed Miliband victory would be welcome.

It might bring back wistful memories of a Labour Party that doesn't nationalise enough instead of one that privatises too much. Or remind us there was once a Labour Party that merely failed to condemn US-led imperial adventures (like Vietnam) rather than actually enthusiastically joining them (like Iraq).

Those who actually believe in socialism could vote for Diane Abbott. The more first preferences going to somebody who opposed the Iraq war out loud, not just inside their own head, the better.

Abbott also deserves votes because she warned against privatising public services when Labour was doing it, rather than just realising it turned off core voters after the damage was done.

Abbott also changed the leadership debate by insisting that Labour can't win back working-class voters lost through right-wing economic polices by making reactionary noises about migration and crime.

If Abbott hadn't stood, a weird mix of Keynesian economics and Powellite politics would have dominated the Labour leadership contest. For this, Abbott deserves as many X's as possible.

The higher the Abbott vote, the greater space for socialism in the Labour Party. After that, the question is whether she and the other candidates' second preferences will stop Miliband D.

It is a close run thing. Even support from Peter Mandelson has not stopped David Miliband's lead. Electoral defeat weakened the new Labour grip on the party, but it still has strong fingers.

So it is a pleasure to see the new Labour leadership in such disarray in the other Labour contest - the London mayoral selection.

Oona King, who volunteered to make the pointless sacrifice for Blairism against Ken Livingstone, isn't even losing gracefully.

Her campaign has been marked by big turnarounds in policy and small turnouts at events.

One day King attacks "Cameron's big society con," the next day she says: "We can't just reject the big society as a big con."

One day a member of King's campaign says: "The problem with the trade union system is that it is rather outdated," the next day the comment is disowned.

One day King suggests free London travel passes for the old and disabled might become means tested, the next day she denies making the suggestion.

King's rotating policy wheel is spinning because her new Labour approach is to accommodate government cuts, not fight them.

King was given an opportunity to ask Livingstone one question in a recent radio debate. She chose the killer line "what areas will you cut?"

She is committed to this line, but it is a vote-loser. So the King campaign keeps suggesting policies and then abandoning them.

King appears to make these rapid policy turnarounds without any sign of dizziness. She is experienced at turning 180 degrees for the new Labour leadership.

Given a recent friendly full-page profile in the Observer, King said she supported the Iraq war because of the "genocide" taking place under Saddam Hussein.

Now only Oona King knows what actually goes on inside Oona King's head. But the public record does not reflect her claim.

King actually changed her mind three times on Iraq. In March 2002 King supported Alice Mahon's anti-war early day motion that began: "This house is aware of the deep unease among honourable members on all sides of the house at the prospect that her majesty's government might support United States military action against Iraq."

Having taken a stand against the war in 2002, she began speaking for the war in 2003. Saddam had not launched any new "genocide" in those 12 months - the big killings took place years before, when Saddam was backed by the West.

And King's speeches in Parliament focused on a load of rubbish about WMD as much as on Saddam's human rights record. In one key debate King suggested Saddam would send nerve gas and anthrax to Britain.

King told MPs: "Let us be clear what this should be about - it is about disarming rogue states with weapons of mass destruction and preventing a future scenario, not a past one, where terrorist networks get hold of weapons of mass destruction, such as anthrax and VX nerve gas, from rogue states such as Iraq, and deploy them in another country such as Britain."

Now, after losing her parliamentary seat over Iraq and watching the disasters unfold after the invasion, King has changed her mind again.

In 2007 she wrote: "I strongly regret having sanctioned an invasion that was reliant on the Bush administration for success." Apparently she did not notice Bush's involvement in the Iraq war until then.

King does seem to be consistent on housing. A consensus is building up in the Labour leadership debate that not building council houses was one of the greatest failures of Labour's 13 years in office.

So King used her Observer profile to claim council house supporters were "ideologically pure" posturers, causing bad housing.

It was an odd claim. King was promoting the use of housing associations over council housing - a Labour policy that led to dismally low social housing provision.

It was doubly strange because, when Labour was in government, King argued against councils even having the "fourth option" of being allowed to build council houses.

She wanted the government to maintain "ideological purity" against council house building.

I hope King's likely defeat will be a small part of a larger unravelling of the new Labour project. It will certainly show that being for war and against council housing is not always the best career choice.