Kevin Maguire and Charlie Whelan are two of the most high profile former members of the inner-circle of the TaliBrown, now they are at the core of the continuity-TaliBrownies. Both are allies of, and boosters for Brown’s heir, Ed Balls. Both of them today are not happy…

Our Kevin says Not-So-Red-Ed was “scared of his shadow – or at least the notion of making either Ed Balls or Yvette Cooper his Shadow Chancellor. So the timid new Labour leader fluffed his first big call and played safe with Alan Johnson. As a result he missed a glorious opportunity to recast his party’s economic policy and to turn the tables on the Tories.” Maguire, in his role as TaliBrown propaganda chief, makes no secret of his preference for deficit denial.

Despite swinging the unions behind Red Ed to win control of the Labour Party, the TaliBrown bully and union-fixer Charlie Whelan is still unhappy; mainly with Peter Mandelson and David Miliband. Telling The Times that David Miliband was annoying and should “get a life” after his failed leadership battle, adding for good measure that his exit from the Shadow Cabinet was ungracious.

“It was slightly self-indulgent to just go off. It didn’t look good. It would have been best for him to say straight away what he was going to do. It’s a tragedy when you lose your job, you are on the dole and you have no money for your family. Politician losing top job is not a tragedy. It’s personally uncomfortable but that’s all. This is why David’s attitude annoys me. He didn’t get the job but it’s not a disaster. Get a life.”

Whelan also backs Ed Balls to be Chancellor in the Shadow Cabinet claiming “He’s got a grasp of the economy and his position on the economy is the right one”. Charlie adamantly rejects the accepted wisdom that Labour’s defeat in the last election was in any part down to Gordon Brown’s deficit denial, claiming

“We could have won that election. Peter Mandelson went round at Christmas saying it’s going to be a catastrophic defeat. Well, if you’re going into the election with your main man telling you you’re going to be defeated then you might as well pack up and go home. Obviously the campaign was an unmitigated disaster.”

Guido can see Balls and his boosters waging low intensity political warfare on Red Ed for as long as he seeks to get on the reality-based side of the deficit denying dividing line. That is something Balls and the rest of the continuity-TaliBrown will be determined to block…