Gordon Brown loyalists are bad-mouthing David Miliband

Michael White is an affable fellow, but no one could ever accuse him of lacking loyalty to the Labour leadership. So it is fair to assume that the following passage in his political briefing today comes straight from the Gordon Brown camp:

Jack Straw is mistrusted and did not risk a run for deputy leader last year. David Miliband, so it is claimed, finds the burden of the Foreign Office heavy enough to have contemplated resignation, not a coup.

If a prime minister's best hope of staying in office is putting it about that his foreign secretary is not up to the job, he really is in trouble. Words like "ferrets" and "sack" spring unbidden to mind.