Guido has called round a few Labour sources after that PMQs. The sentiment seems to be, particularly from those that didn’t vote for Ed Miliband, that “he is as bad as we feared”. Given that the majority of Labour Party members and the parliamentary party didn’t vote for him that is something of problem for the current leader of the Labour Party. Ed doesn’t have command of the shadow cabinet, Balls is on manoeuvres, even Yvette is being awkward. One senior apparatchik described her recent hiring of Roger Baker for her staff as “an act of war”. Roger Baker was until recently Labour’s director of press and broadcasting in Victoria Street. He walked out when David Miliband lost, openly telling all and sundry Ed would be useless. Another former Labour strategist told Guido that he thought Ed was safe because the only alternative was Ed Balls, he claimed “if there is one thing that unites the Labour and Tory front benches it is that they don’t want Ed Balls as leader of the Labour Party”. David Miliband won’t challenge Ed for the leadership.

One former member of Ed Miliband’s campaign team lamented that the government should be far more unpopular as a result of making cuts and raising taxes “we have an open goal”, adding that it was unfortunate for Ed that “people have already made up their mind”, another pointed to the establishment of the “Big Society Panel” as a strategic mistake “even if we were going to try to figure out a response to the ‘Big Society’ we should have called it something else… Ed needs to get on and make appointments; chief of staff, press, his own economics advisers”. A common theme was Ed’s procrastination and a lack of decisiveness, a shadow cabinet source said there was “no clear direction from him, and his office takes ages to turn things round”. Son of Brown indeed…