Time for Miliband to show his colours

Well the BBC's Nick Robinson calls it quite simply extraordinary.

It the decision of Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt to ask for a secret ballot on the leadership of their party.

With rumours unfolding during the week the move was made even as the PM was standing up in the house during PMQ's

As Nick explains

This call for a secret ballot is designed to overcome those two obstacles - by giving the initiative to backbenchers not the cabinet and by bringing forward the pain of public division so that the fear of it is removed as a factor.
Don't believe Labour MPs and ministers who say they've not talked about changing leader. For months the talk's been of little else.

But this is different.As Martin Kettle says

First, this is real and on the record, not speculative as almost everything since last spring has been. That makes it different. Two senior Labour backbenchers, both ex-ministers, one of them (Patricia Hewitt) who can be labelled as a Blairite, the other (Geoff Hoon) who can't, have broken cover. This is not, in other words, a revolt of the usual suspects. It is not an attempted Blairite coup. If you read that it is, you are being lied to. It is what it says on the tin.

As yet though real or not,without a high ranking challenger there is little prospect of this going much further other than defelcting the issues away from the parties policies as the election campaign gets underway.

Will David Miliband finally take the mantle? Accused of baulking out twice,will the party forgiven for a third time if he waits for electoral defaet before standing?

It has taken time but the cabinet are slowly coming out in favour of Brown.Amongst them his loyal ally Ed Balls,Transport minister Sadiq Khan and Shaun Woodward who tells Sky News he is "bewildered" by the calls for secret ballot, and urges Hoon and Hewitt to back down.

Chief Whip Nick Brown also says that Hoon and Hewitt have "no significant support" in push for leadership ballot.

Peter Mandelson menawhile has said that

'No one should over-react to this initiative. It is not led by members of the government. No one has resigned from the government. The prime minister continues to have the support of his colleagues and we should carry on government business as usual.'

So far conspicious by their absence are the Chancellor and the foriegn secretary but wtach this space