Wobbles and grumbles in Labour’s race for No 10

In the week of the Grand National it was a racing certainty that David Cameron would bring up the name of Len McCluskey at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Red Len, leader of the Unite union that helped make Ed Miliband leader of the Labour party only to make his life more difficult since doing so, had been in Parliament the day before.

Addressing journalists he insisted he’d no desire to hand the Tories any ammunition in his answers to their questions.

He then proceeded to all but sign over an entire arsenal to his enemy.

He accused Miliband of “bumbling along”, criticised Labour for supporting the Government’s welfare cap, said he feared for the future of the party and threatened to pull the plug on his union’s financial support.

Heaven knows what he’d have said if someone other than his preferred candidate was leading Labour.

Since Miliband’s confused and lacklustre response to George Osborne’s Budget, an outbreak of internal bickering has beset Labour.

The scale of the problems depend on who you talk to.

Certainly Ed Balls looked at his phone during a briefing by the party’s election supremo, Douglas Alexander. And this slight was most likely in response to Alexander insisting he gets to sit in the middle of the table during Shadow Cabinet meetings.

What the rest of us call musical chairs, Westminster-watchers call civil war.

The crux of the internal disagreements revolve around what to do at the election.

One faction wants a bold offer following up the proposed energy price freeze with policies such as re-nationalising the railways, huge house-building programmes and a comprehensive package of devolution.

Others prefer what they believe is the centre ground, living within the budget set by the Treasury and trying to appear as an alternative Government.

Len McCluskey calls that “a pale shade of austerity” and warns it would guarantee defeat.

But then McCluskey’s political ability was shown up last year when Unite apparently tried to massage the contest to select a candidate in Falkirk only to fail, force Ed to loosen the unions’ influence on Labour and nearly shut down the biggest employer in the area at Grangemouth. Well played.

McCluskey is right about one thing. He said it is “grumble time” in the Labour party.

The only thing their MPs are agreed on is that the public don’t buy Miliband. They disagree on whether voters can learn to love him the more they see of him.

Despite the wobbles Labour are back on top in the polls.

In fact they were never behind. Even the Conservative’s Budget bounce only took them to within a point of the Opposition, who have now led for more than two years.

When Douglas Alexander’s not drawing up Shadow Cabinet seating plans or picking the knives out of his back thrust there by internal opponents, he’s geeing up Labour’s troops, training wannabe MPs and drilling the current crop.

Ed Miliband can take comfort from the polling, from the fact his election chief is busy and from the fact that sometimes you get an occasional break.

Just as the Grand National invariably throws up a surprise, so Prime Minister’s Questions didn’t follow the script.

The PM didn’t throw Len McCluskey’s comments at Miliband in the Chamber and Ed recorded a rare win at the despatch box, taking Cameron to task over the Royal Mail sell off.

We don’t know who Miliband backed in the big race yesterday but the history of the National may teach him something.

If the conditions are right, if the other runners make a minor misjudgement and fall, and if the odd loose horse takes out some of the field, even the most unlikely nag can emerge the winner.