Liz Kendall

Kendall finished 4th in the election, obtaining 4.5% (18,857) of the vote.

In September 2015, Kendall stood for the Leader of the Labour Party in the leadership election following the resignation of Ed Miliband. She finished in last place.

On 10 May 2015, Kendall announced that she was standing as a successor to Ed Miliband for the Labour Party's leadership following its defeat in the general election a few days earlier. Kendall was regarded by many in the media as the Blairite candidate, though Kendall stated she would like to be known as the "modernising candidate". In mid-June, Kendall secured the 35 nominations needed for a place in the leadership ballot.

On 19 May 2015, Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins was appointed as her leadership election campaign manager. Her campaign director was Morgan McSweeney, head of the LGA Labour Group. Her director of strategic communications was Mark Ferguson, former editor of LabourList. Other members of her campaign team included Hopi Sen, Margaret McDonagh and Tony Blair's former press spokesman Matthew Doyle. She also had the support of the Blue Labour Group within the Labour Party including figures such as Maurice Glasman and Rowenna Davis.

In June 2015, Kendall's leadership bid received praise from The Sun, who said that she is the "only prayer they [the Labour Party] have". The Sun also praised her for saying "the country comes first" in response to Andy Burnham who said "the Labour Party always comes first" in the Newsnight Labour leadership hustings. Commentators from across the political spectrum said that Kendall was the leadership candidate the Conservatives would "fear the most". This claim was even re-stated by some Conservative politicians including George Osborne, Boris Johnson, Ruth Davidson, Anna Soubry and Philip Davies.

Kendall resigned from the Shadow Cabinet following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in September 2015. She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election. One year later James Chapman, former Director of Communications at HM Treasury under George Osborne, said, "We really need Liz Kendall to be the leader of [a] new centre party." Chapman had already tweeted his proposals for a new centrist political party opposed to Brexit, 'The Democrats'. After stepping down from frontline politics, Kendall was a regular guest on BBC current affairs programme This Week until its cancellation in July 2019.

Kendall has spoken in favour of "radical devolution" to England to deal with the West Lothian Question and appointed Tristram Hunt to look at what powers ought to be devolved to England. In July 2015, Kendall came out in favour of English Votes for English Laws. Her leadership rivals favoured the formation of a constitutional convention to consider the issue. Kendall has also said that Labour must oppose the 'tyranny of the bureaucratic state' but must also share power at every level so that powers are devolved to communities and individuals too.

Kendall was previously in a relationship with actor and comedian Greg Davies. They ended their relationship a few months before the 2015 general election.

Kendall is a strong pro-European and has spoken in favour of reforming the European Union. She supported an in/out referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, and wanted the Labour Party to play a leading role in a cross-party Yes to Europe campaign. Kendall also backed the NATO target to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. She is in favour of renewing Britain's Trident nuclear submarines. Kendall supports a two-state solution, but she abstained on a motion recognising the State of Palestine, instead favouring the continuation of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. She is a member of Labour Friends of Israel.

Kendall is a strong supporter of LGBT rights and voted for gay marriage in 2013. Kendall has said that under her leadership, the Labour Party would work with other centre-left parties to end the criminalisation of homosexuality across the world and spoken in favour of Michael Cashman becoming the UK's special envoy on LGBTI issues.

From 2011 to 2015, Kendall served as Shadow Minister for Care and Older People and was invited to attend meetings of the Shadow Cabinet. Kendall was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge where she read history. In April 2020, new Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer appointed Kendall Junior Shadow Minister for Social Care, outside the Shadow Cabinet.

In 2010 Kendall was elected as MP for Leicester West with a majority of 4,017 despite a 7.6% swing away from Labour. She made her maiden speech in a debate on tackling poverty in the UK on 10 June 2010. She was briefly a member of the Education Select Committee between July 2010 and October 2010. She supported David Miliband for the leadership of the Labour Party in 2010.

In Ed Miliband's first reshuffle in October 2010, she joined the Opposition frontbench as Shadow Junior Health Minister where she served under John Healey. In 2011, she contributed along with other Labour MPs and former Labour ministers to The Purple Book, in which she wrote a chapter on the early years and health and social care where she proposed a "Teach Early Years First" scheme. Later that year, she was appointed to the new role of Shadow Minister for Care and Older People and became an attending member of the shadow cabinet.

In 2001, she returned to government to work for Patricia Hewitt, at the Department for Trade and Industry, and then followed her to the Department for Health where she was involved in bringing in the smoking ban in 2006. After Hewitt left government, Kendall became the Director of the Ambulance Services Network, where she remained until 2010.

In 1998, when Harman was sacked from the government, Kendall resigned and was awarded a fellowship by the King's Fund, a health charity. She also wrote a series of research papers for the IPPR and was appointed as the Director of the Maternity Alliance, a charity for pregnant women. She was unsuccessful in an attempt to be selected as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Chesterfield at the 2001 general election, following the retirement of Tony Benn.

She attended Watford Grammar School for Girls, where she was Head Girl and a contemporary of Geri Halliwell and the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Priti Patel. After leaving school, she was accepted to read History at Queens' College, Cambridge, where she captained the women's football team, and graduated from Cambridge University with a first in 1993.

Kendall joined the Labour Party in 1992 and, after leaving university, worked for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) where she became an associate director for health, social care and children's early years. In 1996, she became a political adviser to Harriet Harman, and her special adviser in the Department for Social Security after the 1997 general election.

Elizabeth Louise Kendall (born 11 June 1971) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leicester West since 2010.