Skipper

One of the curious aspects of the recent unseemly attempted 'coup' has been the absence of possibly the most combative politician in the Labour Party: John Reid, the Home Secretary. I have long argued he has ambitions for the top job; as we saw during the August air terror scare, he loves being in charge. I wasn't the only one to suggest he'd also love to poke Gordon- an old foe from the days when Scottish Labour politics resembled a suburb of Baghdad- in the eye as painfully as possible.

However, he has been wholly absent from the recent fracas, leaving all the heavy lifting in the fight to Charles Clarke [incidentally, I read in one of the Sundays that the former Home Secretary's outburst against Brown might have been preceded by a 'good lunch'- such is the big man's reputation].

Of course he's been on holiday but for someone as ambitious as Reid, it's odd he failed to cut short his summer sojourn and race home for his knuckle dusters. Maybe he calculated he had more to gain by standing aside and above the fray; but this would lead, as it has, to his name being sidelined as a candidate. Alan Johnson is currently the only real candidate in town. Maybe he thinks he can descend from above the scene of bloody destruction and appear as the much needed voice of reasoned calm who will lead Labour back into winning ways. Whatever the reason, this is the longest silence from him that I can ever recall since he entered the top flight of politics.