Rather surprisingly, Ed Balls finds himself in quite a good position following the decision of the Unite union to back Ed Miliband. He has no hope of winning the leadership, obviously, but that was probably never a realistic expectation. Rather, his reason for throwing his hat into the ring was in the hope of strengthening his claim on the Shadow Chancellorship. In fact, he's proved surprisingly unpopular, not only with the trade unions (the leaders of the GMB and Unison have also thrown their weight behind Miliband Jr.), but with Labour Party members too. Just 14 local party branches have nominated him compared to 106 endorsing Ed Miliband and 130 brother David. Balls's problem, as he himself said on Saturday, is that the other Ed has emerged as the Brownite faction's best hope of defeating the Blairite front-runner. (To read more, click here.)
