John McDonnell was always going to struggle to get on the ballot paper.  With only one other candidate standing, he couldn’t manage it in 2007.  Five other candidates this time made it almost impossible.  Once Diane Abbott split the far left vote, it moved into miracle territory.

More telling was that left-wing MPs like Linda Riordan and David Hamilton have, at the outset, come out for Ed Miliband, while Davey Anderson has backed Balls.

David Hamilton is a proper, no-nonsense left-winger from Middlothian.  He grew up in the National Union of Mineworkers when that meant something.  He went to prison during the 1984-5 miners’ strike.  Dick Gaughan’s song about the miners’ strike salutes Davey Hamilton.  If you were looking for a totally straightforward, implacably left-wing, tell-it-like-is, bow-his-head-to-no-man Labour MP like they used to make ’em, you couldn’t find a more impressive one than Davey Hamilton. He is the only man in the Parliamentary Labour Party who might beat Eric Joyce in a physical fight.

It is significant, in which case, that Hamilton is backing Ed Miliband.  It gives the lie to the notion that the far left will eat the Labour party now that we have lost.  In truth, there is less point to the Campaign Group now than there has ever been.  Which is saying a lot.

McDonnell is mounting a valiant rearguard.  He is an impressive campaigner and an excellent Member of Parliament.  Sadly for him, though, neither that nor old friends in small unions will likely be enough.