Balls falling behind in the Labour leadership race

We are, in all likelihood, only days away from a full-blown, out-in-the-open Labour leadership contest.  In which case, the odds that Ladbrokes have just fired out are worth a passing glance.  Underneath the news that the Tories are now odds-on to form a majority government, they’ve got this list:

Next permanent Labour leader David Miliband 7/4 Ed Miliband 5/1 Alan Johnson 6/1 Harriet Harman 8/1 Peter Mandelson 10/1 Alistair Darling 12/1 Ed Balls 14/1 Jon Cruddas 14/1 Jack Straw 25/1 John Denham 25/1 Andy Burnham 25/1 Hilary Benn 33/1 Yvette Cooper 33/1

The thing that strikes me is Ed Balls’s relatively low position – behind both Alistair Darling and Peter Mandelson, as well as some of the more usual suspects.  So what’s happened to the straight Balls and Miliband scrap that folk expected a few months ago?  Well, I imagine Balls’s fading star is down to a combination of Anthony Calvert’s smart campaign in Morley and Outwood, and the fact that his ties to Brown have become even more poisonous and unpalatable during this election.  Either way, whether he stays in his seat or not, Ed Balls could well be one of the major casualties of this dreadful Labour campaign.