Labour Leadership - should Balls quit?

Charlie Whelan, political director of Unite and best mate of Ed Balls was, when it came down to delivering, unable to secure the union's support for Balls' leadership.

It seems the hapless Balls is also well behind the front runners in all three electoral colleges. In the case of CLP nominations some are forecasting under 15% support.

Balls's camp denied reports in today's Sunday Telegraph speculating that he will quit the Labour Leadership race. They insist he will fight on.

It is clear that the Trades Unions do not want Balls to lead the Labour Party, his fellow MPs and the PLP at large will likely pledge support elsewhere and the 200,000+ Labour members are not convinced by Balls.

It is clear also that the maths will not work for Ed Balls (thus his odds moving out to 40-1) and perhaps he would be better advised to quit the race and pledge support for another candidate. Diane Abbott perhaps!!!

Staying in the race against the odds may just reinforce the view, held by many, that Ed Balls is arrogant and self serving. Maybe though he just hasn't woken up and smelt the coffee yet.

Lifted from Guido - Thanks Guido

Where’s Gordon?™ - Not “Humilated Enough” Clearly

With characteristically poor-timing, Gordon Brown showed his face in Westminster yesterday afternoon, just as the village had spent the morning digesting his less than dignified attempts to cling to power, as confirmed by Mandy.

Naturally EyeSpyMP spotted Brown-in-town first, a blog post from Michael Crick shortly afterwards has torn opinion on whether he was just lazily stealing from, or is in fact, the phantom watcher. So what was the burning issue that brought the Rt Hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, who wakes every morning to fight for a fairer Britain, south to the Mother of all Parliaments?

He was all weird smiles at a drinks party in his honour at Labour HQ. Donors, Lord and Lady Prescott and the like. His wife apparently came too, which must have been nice for her after being dragged back up to Scotland. No expense was spared to honour the most unsuccessful Labour Prime Minister in the history of the party, though as a Scot you would hope Gordon understood the need for the cash bar to be in operation.