Stephen Byers pipes up again

How odd, we hear absolutely nothing from Stephen Byers for months and then suddenly he pops up two weeks on the trot to basically challenges the assumption that Brown is the automatic successor to Blair.

In today's Times, Byers has written a Comment piece which is a direct attack on the Old Left of the Labour Party and argues against "sectional interests" turning back the clock. The best part though is the end of the piece which closes by saying that the "time for coded criticism is over". Riiiight. And that wasn't a coded criticism at Brown for his coded criticism was it?

As the Conferences draw nearer it looks like the only one that is going to be seriously united will be the Conservative Party's. Labour appears to be heading for a divisive leadership battle that will simply expose their ever-growing splits, whilst the Lib Dems, well, who are they again?