sentences:  On 14 May Michael Meacher declared that he would not be a candidate in the Labour leadership election, since he did not have enough MPs support to get onto the ballot paper, going on to say he would be backing John McDonnell to get a left-wing candidate onto the ballot paper, though the possibility of this was still in doubt.On 10 May, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain and Solicitor General Harriet Harman both announced that they had more than the minimum necessary number of nominations to appear on the Ballot paper for the Deputy Leadership Election, claiming 47 and 44 nominations respectively.As nominations opened on 15 May it became clear that Brown was well past the minimum requirement of nominations, with the support of around 282 MPs, while John McDonnell had only 27 nominations, still well short of the 45 required.