If Ed survives till the end of October he should be okay

If (and it’s still a big if) Ed M leaves before election then Yvette will almost certainly take over. She’s been conspicuous by her silence this summer. Shocking really. If however Ed M disappoints at general election then Andy Burnham will also go for it and have a pretty decent chance as will Chuka Umunna.

The trouble for Ed is that his team around him is so weak it can’t address or cover up any of his weaker areas. When you think in ’97 Blair had David Miliband as his Head of Policy and Jon Cruddas as his union link man and compare it with the calibre now iat’s frightening. Just teenagers playing politics and making mistakes. The whole operation looks so weak to MPs – they don’t respect them and it reflects badly on the leader. David Miliband had the organisational charts all ready and people in post – that arrogance was one of the reasons he lost, but still…

If anything happens to Ed M it will be at party conference this year. A lethal cocktail of disappointing summer, MPs getting concerns from activists, rupture with unions, reshuffle that will probably set off a few explosions and disappoint more, intense media scrutiny and the knowledge from Ed’s opponents that this will effectively be the last chance to strike – they won’t do it any closer to the election.

There’s a few folk who have cast their eye to Australia and regardless of who wins have seen the difference Rudd has made to his party’s standing and drawing some conclusions.

If Ed makes it to the end of October he’s fine, but he’s probably going to need people to put their necks on the line for him and right now I’m not sure who.

The loss of Tom Watson is a truly massive blow to Ed M internally. No-one could touch him while Tom was there. He could be fine, but his defences are down.

“Labour insider”