Leadership Hopefuls Emerging From Brillo's Pad

Only two more weeks of hustings to go in the Labour leadership election ! And for those whose window on this private grief is the Beeb's This Week programme, so far we have seen, in sequence (commencing 24 June), Andrew Neil's entertaining knife-jobs on:

- Diannne Abbottt, proving she can't stand the heat in Neil's kitchen any more than could, *ahem*, our friendly Devil
- Andy err, ... ? well anyway, someone called Andy
- BananaBoy Miliband, evidently prepped by Mandy, imperiously brazening out his role as cover for torturers worldwide
- Balls, gibbering. It is said he has recently discomfited Gove and is apparently attracting favourable notices in OldLab quarters for his willingness to deny everything relating to the economy, and general all-round aggression towards the Coalition. It is also said that Tory High Command fervently hopes he will win; and after his performance against Neil we are in no doubt as to why

So, still to enter Brillo's Pad on Thursday, we are left with ... Ed Miliband!

Ed it was who first attracted attention around here in March 2009 when he was tipped by a commenter as the improbable 'John Major' candidate, in a blog-poll where his name didn't even appear in the shortlist. Subsequently, we started watching more closely and took a shine to his executive realpolitik, tipping him in a post a month later.

15 months on, he would still seem to have a mountain to climb because Big Brother Banana-boy has a commanding lead in the money and grandee-nomination stakes. Nor is this particularly inspiring. But who can really see the long-term future in the brazen-lying, wooden, machine-politics apparatchik that is Miliband D? And, conversely, where is the glaring flaw onto which Neil can batten, to leave Miliband E looking as ridiculous as the rest ?

So - Thursday night it is. Lights, camera, action.

ND