John Reid keeping his powder dry?

For some reason I feel John Reid is making a very smart move. I feel this is an indication that he strongly suspects Brown will crash and burn, so he wishes to be outside that failure, untainted by the fall-out. Wise mutterings of not being a bitching back bench bore, too, for that could alienate future comrades from the train-wreck that will be the inevitable result when the Gordon Thunderbolt hits the buffers. It might also be that he knows he will not have the same free hand under the control-freak Brown that he has enjoyed under Blair, but I think that is secondary from the greater reason.

Though Reid is not my favourite person, as with Miliband I do not take him for a fool in matters of political chess-play.

However, I still think Hazel Blears is Totally MAD. Her utterances are returning to that more normal utterly bonkers, wild-eyed slave to Sociofascist authority after a brief period during her push for the Deputy Leadership.