Labour insiders are clucking this morning as the news from Bradford sets in. As Guido mentioned earlier plenty of blame is being dripped out in the direction of General Secretary Iain McNicol, but others are fighting back. One man seems to be suspiciously quiet on the subject and has been all campaign: Tom Watson. As Labour’s “Deputy Party Chairman and Campaign Coordinator”,  he was in charge of this spectacular cock up.

Questions are being asked about why he has spent the week frothing about Panorama damp squibs and sitting around on Twitter instead of leading from the front. Given the number of Mayor and Police Commissioner elections coming up that will involve current MPs, the list of by-elections this year is growing. Too late to do anything about it now though…

UPDATE:

https://twitter.com/#!/SophyRidgeSky/statuses/185655978266591232

UPDATE II: Witnesses report that Tom Watson spent the day in the House yesterday. He was spotted having a long chat with disgraced former Labour MP Denis MacShane. Why wasn’t he on the ground getting out the vote?

UPDATE III: Instead of campaigning in Bradford in the all important weekend before polling, Watson went to the “Guardian Open Weekend” and shared a platform with fellow media luvvies Amelia Hill, Alan Rusbridger and Nick Davies. He cares more about self promotion than his job as Campaign Coordinator.