My colleague George Eaton has blogged about Andy McSmith’s interview with Andy Burnham in today’s Independent, in which the shadow health secretary and Labour leadership contender accused supporters of a rival candidate of “conducting ‘malicious briefing’ in the hope of getting him to throw in the towel”.
From the Independent:
Mr Burnham said that he “nearly fell out of his chair” when he read a report that he was looking for an early exit to avoid the embarrassment of coming fifth in a field of five.
McSmith adds:
Mr Burnham’s camp have remained tight-lipped about who they blame for the smear but some have been quick to point the finger at supporters of Ed Balls.
But in an interesting twist to this story, the shadow education secretary himself has been in touch with me to deny the claims in McSmith’s piece (and George’s blogpost). He said:
There is no truth in these allegations, in these smears about me or my supporters. It is complete nonsense. Andy and I get on very well and no one from my team was involved in these briefings.
And it seems Balls and Burnham have been in discussions about the claims in the Independent:
Andy Burnham and I spoke this morning and we both agreed that any suggestion of him pulling is out rubbish. We both agreed that no one surrounding me has made this allegation. And both of us think there is mischief being made — but it’s not coming from my team or his team. It’s coming from a third party.
Balls added:
I’ve had three years of people ringing up people like Rachel Sylvester and making accusations against me, off the record. But the only thing I’ve been focused on in recent days is Michael Gove.
I asked him who he thought had briefed the papers, but Balls would only say: “I have my suspicions. And so does Andy.”
I guess if it wasn’t Balls, and wasn’t Burnham himself, then that leaves us with the supporters of either Diane Abbott or one of the Miliband brothers.
Who is this “third party”? The plot, as they say, just got thicker . . .
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