Is Ed Balls more left wing than Ed Milliband? Who know or cares? There may be some mental ideological difference that does not really manifest itself in the real world. The half baked putsch attempt by two of New Labour’s most uninspiring figures, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt, is equally free from an ideological crack. If the leaks are true those who identify themselves as Blarites are miffed that Brown is not being more upfront about the cuts in public spending that he is planning. Neither side is offering an option to big public sector cuts it’s just that Hoon and Hewitt think that Labour should take a leaf out of the Tories’ book and brag about their axe wielding prowess. There’s something worth having a vote on!

From an outsiders’ point of view it looks like straightforward treachery of the sort that in other parts of the world might see them dispatched with a couple of revolver shots behind the officers’ mess. The politics of it have a similar lack of intellectual grandeur. Two cliques who agree on the essentials of New Labour’s project have a disagreement over presentation of its election message. Compounding the skullduggery is the fact that Labour under Brown’s leadership gas had a slight increase in its poll ratings. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Hoon and Hewitt are trying to make sure that their party loses the election.

The dog that hasn’t barked in any of this is the Labour Left. If any section of the party should be in a position to challenge the right’s proposals for making working people pay for the bankers’ crisis it should be those in its members who stand on the same side of the fence as postal and British Airways workers. Instead Brown is put on the defensive by two Blairites. This is politics reduced to the level of a battle for control of the board of directors of a supermarket.