Diane Abbott publicly attacks Ed Balls

Former shadow health minister Diane Abbott has taken to The Guardian website to launch a fairly scathing attack on the economic direction of the Labour leadership. The famously outspoken backbencher warns that if Labour “accept the coalition cuts agenda” they will not last more than a term in office. Abbott says:

“Balls has a plan. He just does not feel able to spell it out to party members. It is called embracing Tory austerity.”

Interestingly, no mention is made of Ed Miliband in the piece, with Abbott saving her ire solely for the Shadow Chancellor (and a bit for Lord Mandelson). Is this a small effort on her part to still appear loyal to the leader?

Update: Diane Abbott has responded in the comments below, saying “Why describe an article which is meant to be serious discussion of Labour policy options as an “attack on Ed Balls”? You expect the Tory press to reduce every internal discussion about policy in the party to a single cry of “splits” and talk about personalities, but a left website?”. We recommend that you read the whole piece that Diane wrote this morning to see the full context, but we would argue it’s hard to see how a piece from a Labour MP that says Ed Balls is “embracing Tory austerity” would not be seen as an attack on the Shadow Chancellor.