New video has emerged that further weakens Labour’s latest line that the PM should leave Downing Street immediately if he has not achieved a majority. On election night in 2010, Ed Balls was very clear about our constitutional position: the Prime Minister gets to stay in Downing Street, regardless of the result:

“The first question is, can the Prime Minister form a government…  it’s about the way our county is governed…  the question will be, can the Prime Minister form a government?”

As Guido revealed at the weekend, Ed Miliband was saying exactly the opposite back in 2010 to what Labour are saying today:

“The Prime Minister – the constitutional position is clear – gets to have the first crack… the Prime Minister gets the first go at that and that’s just very simple.”

As the Guardian agrees today:

“Constitutional experts are united that Cameron is entitled to sit in Downing Street to see if he can form a government and might even be entitled to put his Queen’s speech to a vote in the Commons.”

Yet the order has gone out from Labour HQ: say the exact opposite to what they were saying in 2010 when it was their man in Downing Street. 

Labour’s coordinated line is clear: even if the Tories are the biggest party, they have lost. One Labour official briefs:

“All the noise coming out of the mouths of David Cameron and Nick Clegg is about how they can cling on to power even if their coalition loses its majority.”

Over at the Staggers, Owen Jones says the rules must be rewritten, but only if it keeps out the Tories:

“If there is a left-of-centre, anti-Tory majority in parliament then the Tories must fall, however many seats they have won. Left-wing parties will have won the election and a left-of-centre government led by Labour must take office.”

LabourList’s normally quite reasonable Mark Ferguson has verbally soiled himself:

“If Cameron ends up similarly able to command a majority, he’ll seek to be dragged out of Downing Street in the dead of night – after losing a Queen’s Speech vote – his fingernails scraping their way down Whitehall as he goes.”

Did they really think everyone would just forget what Labour were saying just five short years ago?