Labour party

The honeymoon has been spoilt by a bout of food poisoning: Tory dining clubs have decided to obstruct the AV bill. More than 50 Tory MPs will rebel because they believe the referendum should be held on a day other than May 5th and that the referendum should not be binding unless turnout exceeds an agreed minimum. Labour, already masters at opposition, will oppose the bill on the grounds that it includes changes to electoral boundaries – a reform that would lessen the in-built bias in favour of Labour, but which it haughtily considers ‘gerrymandering’. For the sake of the coalition, Cameron owes it to Clegg to at least deliver a referendum, so he must quash this backbench dissent.

Oh look, Gordon Brown has continured his return to public life with a sizeable interview in today's Independent.  It's a generous portrait which seems designed to dispel any rumours about the former Prime Minister's wellbeing. Apparently, he "looks healthy and fit … seems quite cheerful." And we're treated to descriptions of his face, "like a map of a man's soul." For those who can read any further, there are accounts of his constituency work and his aspirations to "do more on international development". The world shudders. Despite his claims to the contrary, there are ominous signs that Brown is keen to impact upon our national politics.

Springtime for Ed Miliband, curtains for Balls. Or at least it should be, following the news that Unite will back Miliband for the leadership. It is rumoured that Balls will pull out of the race and support David Miliband in an attempt to secure the shadow chancellor’s post. But only Brown does seemingly blind defiance better than Balls. This morning, Balls has assaulted the airwaves with the full complement of Brownite clichés: ‘I fight on; I fight to win. I’m in it to win it. I am the best person to fight this coalition.’ You get the impression that he means it, and he’ll fight on in hope rather than expectation. It will take a miracle for Balls to win from here.

Ed Miliband has secured a clean sweep of the major unions. That poses Miliband a problem in the future – centrist opponents can characterise him as ‘the union candidate’ with all its negative connotations. In the meantime, Miliband’s chances of becoming the next Labour leader have been greatly enhanced.   Ed Balls, however, is effectively finished. Balls will recognise this, and will be considering his next move. Now his ambition is to be shadow chancellor, and, as Paul Waugh argued yesterday, David Miliband is the candidate most likely to offer him that, or so the theory goes.  It is, if you'll excuse the expression, all eyes on Balls.

Paul Waugh sees it as his duty to pass on little drops of intrigue, and this one’s a dollop. If, as is expected, Unite back Ed Miliband tomorrow, the clapped-out Balls juggernaught will finally croak: there is no chance of him winning without Unite’s backing. There is a widespread rumour that Balls will pull out and back David Miliband. Waugh explains why: ‘The scenario painted to me is this: by dropping out and backing David M, his chances of becoming Shadow Chancellor are greatly enhanced. (The assumption here is that Ed Mili can't offer him Shadow Chancellor because the top of the ticket would just look too unbalanced...that's an assumption some will challenge).’ Only time will tell.

Anne McElvoy’s report for the Today Programme on the Labour leadership this morning is well worth listening to. It featured all the usual suspect and some classic moments—Tessa Jowell damming Ed Miliband with faint praise and Ed Balls’ henchmen Charlie Whelan going out of his way to praise Andy Burnham—but the really memorable bit came when McElvoy asked Abbott about her decision to send her son to private school. As with her infamous interview with Andrew Neil, Abbott simply refused to answer. There was just a period of dead air.

A little odd, and certainly inconvenient, that al-Megrahi still lives and breathes. Then again, Scotland's a notoriously unhealthy place and a bit of desert air probably did him some good. Ensconced in Washington, David Cameron will have taken some flak for the Lockerbie bomber’s compassionate release, for which he has the perfect riposte: terrible business, but nothing to do with me. His second line of defence is constitutionally watertight: the decision was Holyrood’s alone. The Lockerbie Papers suggest that al-Megrahi’s inclusion in a Prisoner Transfer Agreement was a precondition of any deal between the UK and Libyan governments, as Saif al-Islam Gadaffi maintains.

We’ve reached the Mandelson overload zone, but he makes one vital observation in an interview with Matthew Norman: ‘We drove them (the Tories) further and further to the Right, and Cameron is driving us ever more to the Left. You only win general elections from the centre and we’re sleepwalking into a trap. We need to wake up. There’s still a little time for a leader to emerge from the pack.’ The Labour leadership election was always going to be determined by the left wing of the party and the unions. The assumption was that David Miliband would campaign from the right, but even he favours a permanent 50 percent tax rate.

Asks Jeff Randall in a pugnacious column for the Telegraph. The memoirs, Randall argues, have finally exposed the conceit that Mandelson was a tactical genius. Randall says that Mandelson was a devious and divisive backroom spinner. Well, he ain't the Prince of Darkness for nothing. But Mandelson’s career and political persona were fashioned in a bygone era. Today, ambitious homosexuals climb the greasy pole out in the open – both in terms of their careers and their sexuality, (David Laws was an exception in the latter case). Mandelson’s modus operandi was determined by the conclusion that the 1980s were not an era for gays in politics, whether preening or discreet.