It’s five days until Leicester’s Labour councillors select a new leader.

Veejay Patel is still the apparent front runner. He has, after all, got current deputy Vi Dempster by his side, he was first out of the traps to launch his bid for the leadership, and he also wants a transparent vote to show the party how much support he has.

Normally during a leadership election political reporters are inundated with calls from potential candidates hoping to boost their profile in the run-up to a vote. But not this time.

Is the match-up between Vi and Veejay too powerful to contend with? Would challenging them be a political kamikaze act? Is it still, as one member was quoted in the Mercury as saying, the Dream Ticket?

We’ll know by Monday.

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