Smeargate continues

Another Sunday, another set of damaging revelations.

After a week when the Labour Party tried its best to contain the problems emanating from the 'resignation' of Damian McBride, it would seem that the whole edifice of this once great party is falling apart.

• Ed Balls, the schools secretary, used Damian McBride, the disgraced spin doctor, to smear ministerial rivals and advance his own ambitions, a Downing Street whistleblower has claimed.
• A former Labour MP has quit the party, saying Gordon Brown has betrayed the principles that inspired her to join. Left-wing Alice Mahon, 71, MP for Halifax from 1987-2005, was "absolutely scandalised" by the Damian McBride affair.
• The General Secretary of the Labour Party has denied claims he knew of the plot to smear senior Tories when he held meetings to set up a new website
• A ballot box containing votes for a key parliamentary selection contest was broken into at Labour's national headquarters in London.

A week is certainly a long time in politics.

The G20 meeting, which was to be used to relaunch Brown's flagging ratings, has been forgotten and this week's budget is unlikely to bring cheer to the majority of the general public.

Oh, and a new poll shows that the Conservatives are heading for a 120 seat majority