Speculation that Barry Sheerman is about to announce that he will stand against the Brown loyalist Tony Lloyd for the chairmanship of the Parliamentary Labour party was not dampened by his appearance on this morning’s Today programme.
Mr Sheerman was appearing in his capacity of chairman of the Children, Schools and Families select committee, which had failed to endorse the appointment of Maggie Atkinson as Children’s Commissioner for England, but had been overruled by the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls.
It was natural that Mr Sheerman should express his concern at Mr Balls’s failure to heed the committee’s recommendation, but he did not need to go quite so far as to call Mr Balls “a bit of a bully” or to refer to the decision as a “bad day for Parliamentary democracy”.
Such trenchant criticism of the Prime Minister’s closest ally gives a fair indication of Mr Sheerman’s frame of mind.
Gordon Brown had better watch out.
Just repeated it on Sky News. Good for him.