The defeat in Bradford topped off a rough few weeks for Labour’s General Secretary Iain McNicol. After a shambolic handling of the internal reorganisations he lost the support of many of his troops and it was put to Guido that plans were afoot to ease the union man out. Well it seems that is happening…

With Labour downsizing to a new HQ tomorrow, Team Ed will be centralising the operation and one adviser says they “don’t want McNicol in the room”. He’s likely to be spending more time in the Party’s offices in Newcastle and “touring the regions”. Officially it is unlikely to be described as a relocation, but staffers know exactly what’s going on…

UPDATE: Today’s internal gripe is about said office move. Given it’s happening during an election campaign questions have been asked about timetabling. Apparently the party “can’t afford proper office relocation people, so staff have to spend three days packing themselves instead of campaigning.” They don’t seem very happy about this.