The end game: Further background noise

Apart from the Hazel Blears outburst, these lesser musings will hardly bring much comfort to the Brown bunker.

Denis MacShane writes in the Indy:

I have my views on Mr Brown, and when minister for Europe I knew what it was like to be briefed against. The venom against MPs as fiddling thieving crooks is awesome.

I am a secret fan of Sylvester Stallone and surely today's Prime Minister is Rocky. Battered, beaten, brooding, bruised to bits and at times unable to communicate with the public-school fluency of a Cameron or Clegg but still there bashing on and on and on.

Charles Clarke goes over the top and implies that Brown should sack Ed Balls:

Damian McBride was not a lone gun in the politics of 10 Downing Street. He was part of a poisonous team.

The matter won't be laid to rest until all links with Derek Draper and Charlie Whelan are severed and those Ministers who worked very closely with them are removed from their positions.

The maverick Kate Hoey says she would not be devastated if the Tories won:

A lot of the Labour spin is still 'elect a Tory government and you are electing a Thatcher government'. That isn't necessarily what the public are thinking.

Because the Conservatives have changed their image a bit we don't get that venom that used to come out of people when the word Tory was mentioned.

You're asking me 'would I be devastated?' No absolutely not. Even people who are voting Labour, that Thatcher (comparison) is no more meaningful to them than Tories talking about us and rubbish on the streets and not burying the dead.

Then there is this amusing story of Brown’s latest temper tantrum.

I know now what Mandy means by ‘a sunny weekend’.  Any guests spending the weekend with the Brown’s should make their excuses and leave.  A rather sour atmosphere will be overhanging the breakfast table, not to mention the broken mobile phones littering the floor.