Cruddas the Kingmaker

The lead story in the Observer is a bit of a contrived one, its headline claiming that Gordon Brown faces a party revolt over a possible energy windfall tax. The story is that some MPs, including some in the government, very much want this to happen. For it to be a revolt, you would have to assume that Brown isn't planning it anyway. Reports suggest that he may be.

But the main problem with the story is the description of former deputy leadership Jon Cruddas as "expected to play a king-maker role in any forthcoming leadership contest". Once again political journalists like to paint Labour leadership contests as the sort of thing that is stitched up between key players who can therefore give them the inside track, as opposed to (usually) contested events where party members get a vote. It's quite something that this article manages this while mentioning that Cruddas was a candidate in a vote last year.