Is this Labour’s next leader?

In Yvette Cooper’s home, an entire room is given over to memorabilia of her husband’s life in politics. Pictures of Ed Balls hang on the walls and the room is kitted out with phone lines and computers so it can function as a nerve-centre for the shadow chancellor while he is working from home. Cooper’s office is a snug under the stairs. Anyone visiting might imagine that this was the home of a great political genius, dutifully supported by a mother of three. There is no indication that this impish, unassuming woman is herself now the bookmakers’ favourite to lead Labour into the next election.

With Ed Miliband’s ratings down to a level from which no opposition leader has ever recovered, even the trade unionists who voted him in are beginning to give up hope. Attention is turning to the question of who Labour might have in reserve. Possible candidates include Chuka Umunna, the modish, shaven-headed MP for Streatham, and Dan Jarvis, the rather dashing MP for Barnsley, who is a former Paratrooper with an MBE.