Just before Christmas, reports of a Shadow Cabinet rift by Patrick Wintour resulted in the usual trashing from uber-loyalists. Apparently there was agonising over the economic message, and meetings about why Labour were not getting any cut through, despite the dire wilderness that they claim Tories are creating. As ever, these things comes down to credibilty, and it seems Jim Murphy and his allies won the row that never happened.

While accpeting £5bnn in defence cuts is only a small step in Labour’s long road to economic rehabilitation, it is an important one. Balls is being over-ruled, and though the CCHQ pr machine has gone too far this morning by claiming that this is an “extraordinary attack” on the Eds, the importance of this realignment should not be down-played. You can imagine Murphy saying this a little more bluntly to Balls’ face:

“There is a difference between populism and popularity. Credibility is the bridge away from populism and towards popularity. It is difficult to sustain popularity without genuine credibility.”

Welcome to the reality based community Jim…