Larry Whitty says party reforms will be “difficult” but he’s “sure it can be done”

The Tories have been trying to make hay this evening out of Ed Miliband’s appointment of Ray Collins to run Labour’s review of the party/union link. In particular, they’re getting particularly excited by a tweet from the BBC’s Nick Robinson that said:

“Larry Whitty turned down job of implementing Ed M’s reform plan as feared was unworkable & groundwork had not been done”.

Robinson thought – as I did last night – that Whitty would be running the review. Yet although I had heard this from several credible sources that this was the case, it was never confirmed by a party spokesperson. In the end Robinson was wrong – as was I. When so many rumours are circulating, you win some you lose some.

The reality of the story is more complex. It’s true that Whitty had been in discussions with the Labour leader about the position, but we’ve heard from the former General Secretary this evening, who said:

“I felt that delivering this change would be difficult. But that was true when we were modernising the Labour Party under Neil Kinnock and John Smith too. It was done then and I’m sure that it can be done again.”

Unworkable? There’s a long road ahead for these reforms and the outcome remains to be seen – but “unworkable” doesn’t seem to be Larry Whitty’s view…