Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Murdoch?

With this, I mean.

The main complaint in what is therefore an obviously Mandelson-planted piece is that Leyton & Wanstead has selected the former MP John Cryer rather than Mandy's mate, the television historian Tristram Hunt.

I - yes, even I - am astonished that Hunt has ever been a Labour Party member, never mind that he still is one. He neither knows nor cares the first thing about the Labour Movement beyond the handful of upper-crust Fabians who went to public school or were otherwise associated with the Marxists, New Liberals, English Idealists and the like who genuinely interest him and with whom he strongly identifies.

Mandy wants him in so that he can be given something in a Government headed by the current leader of people like that, a Government in which Mandy has already promised to serve. That leader is not Gordon Brown.

Brace yourself for the following shocks and horrors:

"Research by The Sunday Times into Labour candidates selected for safe seats shows that more than half are members of trade unions." [My emphasis]

"Whatever the overall election result, trade union officials past and present will account for about 20% of newly elected Labour MPs."

"There are signs of a breakdown of the old “assisted places” scheme where ministerial advisers were eased into safe northern seats."

Boo, hoo.

"Polly Billington, the aide to energy secretary Ed Miliband, lost out recently to an unknown local candidate in North Tyneside."

Clearly not "unknown" in North Tyneside. Unlike this Billington, who is clearly as unknown there as she is everywhere else.

"Over the past year the percentage of Labour funds that comes from union sources has risen from 50% to 60%."

"During the election campaign Labour will benefit not only from the unions’ money but also their organisational machines. At Unite, Whelan has organised a system for getting out the Labour vote which includes direct mail and phone banks."

"The Communication Workers Union will block any revived proposals to part-privatise the postal service."

If the Conservative Party had a conservative or Tory bone in its body, then it would be right behind and alongside the CWU. But it hasn't, so it won't be.

"Expect urgent legislation to boost workers’ rights."

As if!

"The big loser is David Miliband"

A statement of the obvious under any circumstance.

"The Blairite candidate [for Leader] might get a sympathetic hearing in the media, but it is apparent from who has been selected that the right of the party has comprehensively lost control of the machine."

Define "the Right". The three candidates mentioned in this article are Miliband, Ed Balls and Harriet Harman. To say the very least, none of those embodies Labour's traditions of patriotism, social conservatism, and a strong Christian streak.

There. Did you manage to get through all of that? Well done. Now, really brace yourself hard for details of the candidates themselves:

"rebelling on the Iraq war, university fees and benefits cuts"

"A member of the Grassroots Alliance — “committed to redistributing wealth, income and power from the few to the many” — beat Georgia Gould, daughter of Tony Blair’s pollster Phillip Gould"

"has called for a renationalisation of the railways"

"describes herself as a campaigner for “workers’ rights”"

"launched a strong attack on the Iraq war"

"selected after playing up her opposition to the Iraq war, identity cards and privatisation"

Imagine! Would that these were in fact remotely typical figures. But they are not. And as for the GMB's fixing of Wansbeck for Ian Lavery as part of the deal for its takeover of the NUM and its considerable assets, wash your mouth out if you suggest that anything remotely comparable, never mind even worse by quite some distance, goes on either in New Labour circles or across the aisle...