The return of ‘Ruthless Ed’?
So Ed Miliband has wielded the axe against one of the first frontbenchers to declare for him – John Denham. He’s also wielded it against the most popular man in the shadow cabinet elections – John Healey. Night of the Long Johns?
It’s the ruthless streak that he showed against his brother and less famously against the last Chief Whip Nick Brown. It’s not sounding like as ruthless a reshuffle as some would’ve liked though. Some Ed M fans feel there are too many David M supporters in senior positions who are not true believers in the Ed M cause.
Some new 2010 intake MPs will get a leg up but I hear there will be no return for Alan Johnson or Charlie Falconer as some had rumoured.
On the Ed M cause itself, one shadow cabinet member told me, “Ed can’t tip-toe away” from the predator/producer stuff in his leader’s speech at conference.
Having said bold things then spent the next day rowing back from them he has to give us a clearer sense of what it was all about, my source said.
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