JUST when Ed Miliband thought he might be able to seize the initiative after a terrible week, up pops his good comrade Len McCluskey to declare he has no trust in Labour HQ and to demand an independent inquiry into the Falkirk debacle.
After a terribly bruising PMQs this week when Labour backbenchers had to bite their lips amid the Cameron onslaught, Mr Miliband was determined to take some decisive action.
Wounded by the Prime Minister's charge that he was "weak, weak, weak", the Labour leader sought to make a determined move 24 hours later.
So, according to sources, Tom Watson was resigned as election co-ordinator. His aide and the Unite candidate in Falkirk, Karie Murphy, was suspended – meaning she is disbarred from taking part in the Falkirk selection – as was Stephen Deans, chairman of Falkirk CLP.
Mr Miliband also ended the discredited practice of allowing unions to sign up en masse their members into the Labour Party, which was at the nub of the allegations that Unite flooded Falkirk to get Ms Murphy selected as the CLP's election candidate.
While it is said that one of Mr Miliband's triumphs has been the elimination of the debilitating Blairite/Brownite rivalry, there is an intriguing TBGB aspect to the Falkirk row.
Mr Watson, a chum of Gordon Brown, who famously was part of the get rid of Tony brigade back in 2006, has Ms Murphy as an aide. Mr Watson once shared a flat with Mr McCluskey, who is said to be a good friend of Ms Murphy. Mr Deans, who is also suspended, chairs Unite in Scotland.
One of the original candidates in the Falkirk race was Gregor Poynton, husband of MP Gemma Doyle, who is in the shadow defence team of Jim Murphy, a leading Blairite in Mr Miliband's team. Mr Murphy has been the only Shadow Cabinet member to put his head above the parapet this week to criticise Unite's tactics in Falkirk, saying they overstepped the mark. Mr Miliband had a chance to get rid of Mr Watson from his frontline team on Tuesday.
Presumably, the West Bromwich MP wanted to go, knowing the next day's PMQs would be bad for his leader. But Mr Miliband hung onto him. Why? Comradeliness or weakness?
Meantime, the Tories are loving it. One Conservative backbencher beamed that the party had a new secret weapon: Len McCluskey.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article