Miliband protests his innocance

No one in the Government was involved in this letter last week,” he said. “The unanimous view is that we’ve got to focus on providing a clear alternative to the Tories.”

The words of David Miliband in the Times as he rigoursly defends his position this time last week as the coup that wasn't sprung into action

He firmly rejects the view that he dithered for 7 hours though on has to ask the question if he was so behind Gordon Brown,why did he not rush to the microphone during the afternoon?

It is hard to exaggerate the dislike which the Prime Minister arouses among senior Labour figures

Flicking through my feeds this morning,my eyes fell on Bruce Anderson's piece in the Independent headlined All of Brown's Cabinet now want him to lose the next election.

According to Anderson,

It is hard to exaggerate the dislike which the Prime Minister arouses among senior Labour figures.If the Labour Cabinet could decide the outcome of the election in a secret ballot, there would be an overwhelming vote for a Cameron-led minority government,

Many,including Peter Mandelson have alreday written off the election.

he is devoting all his energies to the future. He will continue to work hard in the election campaign, to try to avoid a massacre and to ensure that he retains his current prestige

A snowstorm in a teacup

I rather like the Economist's Bagehot's comments on the coup that wasn't

There is a French school of historians who see climate as one of the underlying drivers of human history. The typical application of this view to Britain is that, being a grey, damp nation, we have quiet, uneventful politics. Yesterday we had the snowstorm: I wonder what difference that made. Among other things, it meat that the BBC didn’t even lead with the plot on the Six O’clock news, going with the snow instead. It meant that some MPs went home early. If it had been an uneventful, sunny day, would it have made any difference? Maybe not.

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