The Lady Doth Protest Too Much?

Did you happen to see this morning's (Sunday) "AM" show on BBC1? Since Andrew Marr is on holiday the programme was guest presented by Huw Edwards. He interviewed Deputy Labour Leader Harriet Harman live from Warwick, where Labour glitterati have this weekend assembled for their National Policy Forum at Warwick University. You can read the BBC's transcript of the interview here.

Huw Edwards was trying to get Ms Harman to admit that the party itself was tired of losing elections - Crewe and Nantwich, London Mayoral, and this week Glasgow East - and that there was a general feeling that Prime Minister Brown had become something of a liability; a Jonah without whose removal the party's fortunes would be unlikely to change.

And for ten minutes, viewers were treated to the unedifying spectacle of Ms Harman claiming that the Labour party's growing slump in the polls was due to the credit crunch; the price of oil; the rising cost of food. But not the Labour government. She asked for action by the banks, by the utility companies, by the supermarkets. She blamed the international community. But not the Labour government.

The most transparently cynical theme running through the entire interview was her unwillingness to admit that the Labour Party generally, and Gordon Brown specifically, had lost the confidence of a nation.

And that in the queue of would-be replacements beginning to sharpen their steely knives, Ms Harriet Harman was widely tipped as being front of the queue.