Only one opponent...

...and anyone outside of his constituency or not a Labour supporter would have trouble telling you a single thing about the challenger. What does this say about New, New Labour? They are falling over themselves to be deputy leader, which strikes me as odd as we don't even know who the leader is yet!...do we? Harriet Harman, Peter Hain and Hazel Blears have all published lists of the minimum 45 backers needed to challenge. Alan Johnson is another thought to have enough support and additionally Jon Cruddas and Hilary Benn say they are "confident" of getting to 45; however, none want to challenge for the leadership, leaving the 'lip-service payment' to an almost unknown:

"Left-winger John McDonnell is confident he can summon enough support from Labour MPs to get his name on the ballot paper later this week"

..."on the ballot paper", he's only confident he can get his name on the ballot paper; I bet Gordon is trembling in his big brown shoes; shaking so much in fact that he may even help out:

There had even been suggestion he might "lend" some of his supporters to Mr McDonnell to ensure he gets onto the ballot paper and allow the contest to go ahead.

Can this get any more ridiculous? Yes, there have been a few reports lately of Gordon Brown's 'green' ideas, eco-housing etc. I see similarities to the early Blair - all things to all people.

Rachel Sylvester writes in todays Daily Telegraph, [Link] "The Chancellor, as one minister put it, has to develop the 'human touch'". It's a good article saying that "...(so far) there have been no great surprises in what Mr Brown has said. He has not produced a 'Bank of England' moment: instead, he has been attempting to neutralise the negatives of the Blair years." Adding that his speeches have been 'compilations of his greatest hits'...but, now we know he will be Prime Minister (ahem...we don't know, do we?) ..."it is impossible not to look at what he says in a different way."

Mr Brown is undoubtedly a conviction politician. Last week, he talked again of the "moral compass" that he inherited from his father. If Mr Blair is a neo-Conservative on foreign policy, who wants to use military might to reorder the world, then Mr Brown is a domestic neo-Con, who is intent on using the welfare state to reorder the country he aspires to run. He does want to narrow the gap between rich and poor, and he is determined to revive a sense of national identity.

Interesting eh?
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Update 15/05/07, 7:40pm: Just read this on the DT blog, Daniel Hannan (MEP) says "Where the blithering flip have people got the idea that Gordon Brown is a Euro-sceptic? Name one thing – one thing – that he has done to strengthen British sovereignty." I couldn't agree more: I have always thought the big Blair/ Brown 'rifts' over the EU was a complete sham.