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16 June 2010updated 27 Sep 2015 2:18am

Labour leadership race gets down and dirty

Balls claims the Milibands are briefing against each other.

By James Macintyre

There’s a striking aside in a story on the Labour leadership, written by Paul Waugh, in today’s Evening Standard.

Mr Balls claimed that the Miliband camps had been briefing against each other. He told Total Politics magazine that Ed’s supporters had been attacking David’s “personality”, while David’s backers had criticised his brother’s “decision-making”.

Over to Total Politics, which has released this quote from Balls:

Between the brothers there has been a little bit of off-the-record briefing going on. Hopefully, the two of them will say to their supporters to stop it. It is pretty unedifying.

One wonders what “the brothers”, and others in Labour, will make of that. In making accusations like this, Balls must be confident that he is not briefing against any of the other candidates. However, it should be said that none has emulated David Miliband, whose decision to only allow on-the-record briefings from his press secretary Lisa Tremble was, in effect, a challenge for others to do the same.

Meanwhile, for a detailed anlysis of the race between the Miliband brothers, watch this space.

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