Are Byers and Milburn quitters not fighters?
Since the weekend. I've been mulling over the departure of two of our North East New Labour architects
The likes of Alan Milburn and Stephen Byers have had grave doubts about the direction and leadership of the party since Tony Blair left Number 10, and Gordon Brown arrived.
For a while it looked like they would fight their corner.
In public, they pushed for more evidence of Labour renewal from Gordon Brown.
Privately, they were rumoured to be plotting his overthrow.
But now it appears they've thrown in the towel.
The failure of Blairite plotters to remove Gordon Brown before the summer seems to have knocked the fight out of them.
They distanced themselves from the plot; it even happened when they were both out of the country.
They hoped it could then avoid being seen as a coup masterminded by the usual embittered Brown enemies.
But with the new Blairites bungling the Brown assassination, they seem to have decided that's that.
An interesting blog by Nick Robinson highlights the different camps he now sees within the Labour party.
He divides the factions into plotters, quitters and fighters.
For a long time Byers and Milburn were seen as plotters. They now seem to have joined the ranks of quitters.
Yet I can't imagine them giving up on politics completely. It's certainly in Alan Miburn's DNA.
I remember talking to him even before Blair's departure about his ideas for renewal, which were very much focused on how to deal with an ageing society.
And since then he's also been keen to talk about the need for more social mobility (he of course came from humble beginnings in Newcastle to become a Cabinet minister).
Perhaps the fate of the Brown government will have to become clear before we know whether the likes of Milburn and Byers have any part to pay in the future direction of Labour - albeit outside the Commons.
In the meantime of course they are free to pursue the kind of offers that prominent ex-ministers always get.
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Selection news from Newcastle North.
Labour's all-women shortlist has been announced.
It is Adenike Rachel Abimbola-Akindele from London, Catherine McKinnell, a solicitor from Newcastle who already has her own campaign website, local ward councillor Sharon Pattison and Tracey Paul, the local branch secretary from Gosforth who works for the National Labour Party at their Head Office in Newcastle.
Selection is November 28.
I'm Richard Moss, the BBC's Political Editor for the North East and Cumbria. Welcome to my irreverent - but hopefully insightful - northern take on reporting politics for Look North and the Politics Show.
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