The illusion of unity is just about holding up in Manchester. Both Alan Milburn and Peter Mandelson stayed away—much to the disappointment of us hacks—from the Progress rally last night despite being listed as speakers, and most attacks on Brown have been in code. All of this makes Ed Balls’ attack on Tony Blair at the Fabian Society Question Time all the more bizarre.
The events had gone much as expected. The final question to the stellar panel—including Fraser Nelson of this parish, Jon Cruddas, Sunder Katwala and Zoe Williams, and superbly chaired by Gaby Hinsliff of The Observer—was about the role of the party in making policy, fairly innocuous stuff. Cruddas answered with a few gags about the division of the ‘80s and then Balls launched into an unprovoked attack on Blair. Balls claimed that in the ‘80s Blair had favoured taking the right to pick a candidate away from local parties and giving it some group of party wise-men.
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