Attention was turned to the election for London's mayor at morning conference today, with some wondering why Ken Livingstone seems so alone in his campaign when Conservative big guns are lining up behind Boris Johnson, with his 12-point lead in the polls.
Admittedly, the top Tories are saying (anonymously) that they are there in force to prevent the "gaffe prone" MP from straying.
So is the support structure missing from Ken's team, a colleague asked, because senior Labour politicians don't really care if he loses even though they recognise the national importance of the vote? Or is it that the Labour left is so demoralised with Gordon Brown's leadership that they believe they can't win another election anyway?
It was conceded that the prime minister endorsed the mayor last week, that high profile supporters published an open letter last month urging support for Ken over Boris, that Hackney MP Diane Abbott will write in his support in this week's New Statesman, and that another London MP, Sadiq Khan in Tooting, is expected to do the same on Comment is Free shortly.
But the mayor still faces the unceasing opposition of the London Evening Standard, the capital's only paid-for evening paper, and the highly publicised criticism of the likes of Martin Bright of the New Statesman and his recent Channel 4 documentary, plus other members of the 'left' commentariat such as the Observer's Nick Cohen.
So isn't the support being offered, the argument ran, too little and too late? Much of the energy of Livingstone's team has been expended on fighting off attacks like these rather than fighting the election.
The strategy so far has relied on green issues in his manifesto but its chances of success were questioned. Is there a big enough green vote in London to secure a majority, even with the electoral pact drawn up with the Green party for second choice votes? Wouldn't it be better to refocus on bread and butter issues in the mayor's track record to pull out the core working class vote?
A new Guardian/ICM poll next week will test the current state of the parties. Previous polls that give Johnson the 12-point lead have been questioned for their methodology.
