I love the idea that the Blairite brains trust thinks it can use Yvette Cooper as some sort of dumb pawn. This is up there with the Hoon/Hewitt night of the blunt knives.

I’d say that this sort of mental energy needs to be directed at fighting the coalition, but Labour’s right-wing doesn’t really oppose the coalition, does it? Not on any moral or philosophical grounds.

Contempt for the Labour movement and for anything a millimetre to the left of orthodoxy has always been a defining feature of Blairism. That rather suggests that the answer is for them to stop torturing themselves and just leave. Clearly they’d be happier as (not that) critical friends of the Cameroons and Orange-Bookers. And Labour would be a more coherent, united party at ease with itself as a coalition of social democrats and socialists.

I’d just tell them to grow up.

So just give up on the 2015 election? That’s the plan is it? Genius! No wonder the Tories are so fond of them.

Why would they be giving up on the next election when the polls are currently very close and the full effect of the cuts is yet to really bite? The election is still (unfortunately) a few years away. Anything can happen in that time period. We could see a strong economic recovery which would put the ball in the Tories court or we could see a slip back into recession and explosion in unemployment which destroys the Coalition economic strategy.

Besides we still don’t really know what will happen to the exodus of Lib Dem voters. A lot depends if they vote Labour or don’t vote at all. I think that the Green’s will do very well out of that.

The Labour Party is sleeping walking into the same situation as it did with Gordon Brown and in the process is losing more and more respect along with any credibility that it may have with a handful of dedicated followers !

What the Labour Party definitely needs is a fresh new face leading it otherwise it has no chance whatsoever.

A BIG Bold Change with a women preferrably Rachel Reeves with new policies.

Today the Labour Party looks fragmented and more at war with itself rather than looking to the future.

Ed Miliband appears to have lost control and weak.

How about we all grow up and stop giving credence to this kind of silly nonsense unless there’s some actual demonstrable evidence? Personally, as someone who is occasionally thought of by others as a Blairite, I supported Ed Balls for leader but would have backed Yvette is she had stood – not because she’s some sort of Milliband stalking horse, but because in my view we’d be most likely to win with her as leader. As it is, we have a leader, and the most important think we can all do for the people who depend on us is to worry less about silly media froth and more about active campaigning to win for Labour

“If the political editor of the Mail on Sunday is writing about it then it means some people are seriously thinking about this outlandish plot.”

That’s a non-sequitur… otherwise, great post!

So what if there’s plotting for after the 2015 election now, Michael howard new he wasn’t going to win and he wanted Cameron not David Davis to replace him he was plotting that as early as 2002, before he was leader

I’m pretty sure Machiavelli wasn’t as ham-handed as this.

This article appears to rest on the premise “If the Mail on Sunday says it, it must be true”. I don’t find that particularly convincing.

I’ve never believed the leader’s position on the political spectrum was as important as whether or not they strike the public as a plausible PM. It was a hurdle that Kinnock, for all his virtues, never cleared and it is my main concern about EM. Yvette was to my mind our outstanding performer in an otherwise dismal campaign and aside from DM (whose moment may now have passed) the likeliest to convince the voters.

I certainly agree that any attempts to replace Ed Miliband as leader of the Labour Party must be strongly resisted. He is one of our best electoral assets, and his remaining in post is crucial for the well-being of the nation. Sunny’s doing sterling work.

“They also see her as a way of ending Brownite Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls’s – Ms Cooper’s husband – hopes of becoming leader.”

This bit puzzles me. I am sure Ed Balls has said that he will not contest the next leadership election, but support Yvette. If you like, they had their own ‘Grantia’ agreement.

Sunny, you do realise that there’s a swathe of left/liberal feminists who (a) want Cooper to be leader/PM; (b) won’t take kindly to the idea that she can be used as some kind of fluffer – sorry, buffer – for the benefit of David Miliband. Still, it’s interesting to know that the Blairite Circular Firing Squad has still learnt nothing from the last seven years.

Delusional as ever.

This is the Milipede Protection Society, oh it’s the Milipede Protection Society…

I would quite like to see a DavidM Sky interview cut short as he takes a phonecall from his brother telling him off. Except that would require EdM to actually speak to DavidM so that wouldn’t happen.