The dynamite Balls memos

[longfingernails]

Of course, the BBC (being the Labour party mouthpiece it is) has done its best to cover them up - but they are absolutely lethal for the Labour party.

They show how in the midst of the 7/7 aftermath, Balls, Red Ed and other Brownite henchmen plotted to overthrow Labour's three-time election winner Tony Blair.

Even more interesting now that David Milliband has come out strenuously 'in support' of his brother and that there are stories of a big rift Chez Milliband. If I were Ed, I'd be nervously watching over my shoulder. It's clear that his nine months at the helm have not been stellar. He's failed to make substantial ground in the local elections even against an upopular government and was blatted in Scotland. His big party message is... well... no-one knows. I think the sharks are circling, the big boys have lost patience and there will be a quiet reorganisation in due course. All he needs is Mandelson to come out in support and he's history.

Naturally, I'm delighted that Labour are preoccupied with infighting again. Nothing hacks off the electorate more thoroughly than politicians so preoccupied with climbing the greasy pole that they forget to do the job they're meant to be doing.

"Nothing hacks off the electorate more thoroughly than politicians so preoccupied with climbing the greasy pole that they forget to do the job they're meant to be doing." I wish more of the electorate would be hacked off about it.

What on earth do these politicians' constituents think their MPs are doing, lining their own pockets and carving out book-writing and after dinner speaking careers, when they're supposed to be working for us? why do they keep voting them in? Are they mad, or blind, or deluded?

We all know why. Tribalism. They could stick a red rosette on a slug in a Labour stronghold constituency and it would be returned with a massive majority. Ditto if the slug was wearing a blue rosette in a Conservative safe seat, of course. :) The extra-curricular activities of individual MPs, to a point, are acceptable. But nationally, I think something negative does start to permeate when we see front-benchers bitch-slapping each other within a party, leaking and briefing to the papers like one of Ryan Gigg's exes. The way Labour flatly denied rumours of a rift between Brown and Blair for all those years when, in reality, the working relationship had totally broken down... and who knows what crappy decisions this led to... a) made them all look utterly stupid and b) showed how much contempt they held the electorate in.