Now Ed Balls suggests he won't campaign for AV

Intellectually flexible: Ed Balls (Photo: Reuters)

Nick Clegg's referendum on adopting the alternative vote for Westminster elections presents Labour with a mouth-watering opportunity, a chance to inflict a painful defeat on the Lib Dem leader and strain the very basis of the Coalition. After all, the theory goes, if there's no electoral reform, why stay in bed with the Tories and see your poll numbers tank?

However, there's a tiny little problem with Labour opposing AV: the party fought the general election on a promise to, er, introduce AV. So the party's greatest minds are current churning away, desperately trying to find a flimsy pretext convincing intellectual justification for opposing something they previously supported for short-term political gain in the national interest.

The Labour repositioning is being led by Jack Straw and Ed Balls, both known for their — how to put this? — intellectual flexibility.

Mr Balls is now on the BBC's Daily Politics, explaining that the fact that the AV referendum will be accompanied by changes in constituency boundaries makes the AV move itself illegitimate.

So will he campaign for AV?
A: "Why should we campaign for something that is being done in an improper way?"

Tory backbenches are already girding for war against AV. David Cameron is making clear he will stay as far away from the whole affair as possible. If Labour can manage to crab-walk into a position of opposing AV, Mr Clegg is going to find himself in a very lonely position indeed.