Where are the leaders? asks Richards

Steve Richards stirs up the Labour sucession battle in his column in the Independent this morning.

With Yvette Cooper rumoured to be being pushed to stand against any Harriet Harman move he points out that

Cooper is married to Ed Balls. Suddenly we have the prospect of husbands and wives along with brothers – the Milibands – battling it out in a contest of fraught emotional intensity. I am exhausted already. Goodness knows what it must be like as an aspiring candidate with close members of your family breathing down your neck.

However this early positioning could well be in vain as he says an election is at least a year away.

So much so that the real potential candidates have not surfaced yet,

Of the aspiring leaders, Ed Balls, is the only one who has played a major role in shaping economic policy, but that was behind the scenes. He remains a pivotal confidant on economic matters, but still below the radar.