Mr McKeating’s take on Red Ed’s failure to turn up to today’s TUC rally against the cuts:

No less nauseating is the sight of once-and-future disappointment Ed Miliband checking his balls in at the door. Would he attend the TUC rally against Tory cuts, he was asked during the Labour leadership campaign. ‘I’ll attend the rally, definitely,’ said the Left’s last ‘hope’ in a pitch for the union vote. Now he’s in the big chair and lacking the guts or guile to fight (or, God forbid, defend) his ‘Red Ed’ nickname, we hear ‘there was never a firm commitment that he would attend the rally‘.

Fading hopes, then, of Red Ed leaping out of a cake for Friday’s reading of the Lawful Industrial Action bill – union members’ last real chance for a change to anti-union laws that would make striking to save services and jobs a genuine option. Alan Johnson’s tub-thumping about cuts means nothing. When it comes to standing side-by-side with the average working punter, Labour’s in-group is – as it has always been – on the first plane out.