David Miliband has previous at pulling almost Gordon-esque disappearing acts when the Prime Mentalist has come under trouble. It took him a mere seven hours to give a lukewarm statement in support of Gordon last night, and he did not repeat it when he was door-stepped last night.  His SpAd was reportedly calling around cabinet ministers yesterday afternoon asking them to delay giving their support.  A feeble way to undermine the Prime Mentalist.

Only once the coup was well and truly dead, after Mandelson passed his judgement on Newsnight last night, did he come out this morning and endorse Brown’s leadership. How he thinks anyone wouldn’t notice such cowardice and dithering beggars belief.  He messed up his own coup attempt in 2007, let his old friend Purnell down badly by not following his resignation, as agreed, in June and now he is under fire from his own side about his silence yesterday. Even Darling reportedly had the balls to confront Brown face-to-face about the prospect of him standing down for the good of the party, instead Miliband just cowered in the Foreign Office, just as Brown used to in the Treasury.

Why would the Labour Party want to replace one dithering coward with another?

UPDATE : Dizzy has spotted some activity on miliband.org.