Ipsos Mori’s poll for today’s Observer:
Con 36% (-1), Lan 39% (+4), Lib Dem 15% (-3)

That translates to a Labour majority of 72, according to electoral calculus. What a way to welcome a new leader and deputy leader than to be ahead in the polls for the first time since December?

While we’re on the subject of the deputy leader, Benedict Brogan has a really odd story about how the candidates will be told - locked in a room, no mobiles, the winner taken away whilst the others stay there. I can’t make my TV work in my new home, so gotta get to the gym to watch the announcement on Sky. If Cruddas does well, I may fall off the treadmill…

Earlier this week I was talking about women in the Cabinet; today, the Sindy suggests that Angela Eagle, Mary Creagh, Angela Smith, Vera Baird, Caroline Flint and Yvette Cooper may get promotions, and Ruth Kelly may survive for exactly that reason. I’d really like incompetent women not to survive because they’re women, thanks.

The Sindy article also has a cryptic couple of paragraphs about Ruth Kelly and “super-councils”, which I guess must be the new generation of unitaries that are being assessed at the moment - what people elsewhere might call “a sensible arrangement for local government, with one council in each area”. Forgive me for not understanding why people are opposed. I’m not bitter that Oxford didn’t get through. Oh well.