Charles Clarke

Now we find out what he meant by debate.

In one short article today we have him using playground language to attack his successor John Reid's proposals for dealing with the mess Mr Clarke left the Home Office in - which most other commentators view as "common sense" not "batty"; and announcing he is likely to break a 3-line whip on maintaining the UK's nuclear deterrent, a policy that was a pledge in the Labour Manifesto that he fought the last General Election on as a senior Cabinet Minister.

In what he describes as the “very unlikely” event of him running against Brown for Leader, who does he think would be the 44 MPs who would nominate him?

They would presumably be to the right of Brown but

a) happy to slag off ideas that Tony Blair and John Reid come up with
b) in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament
c) in favour of breaking 3-line whips on manifesto commitments
d) in favour of having a PM who was sacked for being unable to manage one department, let alone the whole government

... I have trouble coming up with a list of 4 MPs that fit those criteria, let alone 44.