Minor changes to the Labour Party frontbench were announced earlier today following the resignation of Jim Murphy to muddy the water in the Scottish Labour Party.
The main news which did not form part of the official announcement was that shadow chancellor of the exchequer, Ed Balls, remains in post. What was significant was the appointment of Jon Trickett as keeper of the radical runes in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition.
A more conventional report of these events can be read on the New Statesman's blog The Staggers here
If that job for Trickett is going to make a real contribution to boosting seriously flagging party morale, then he needs to set a number of tasks for Balls that keep the radical agenda rolling.
Top of that list must be Growth4All versus austerity-lite. As set out out by Balls, Labour is committed to apeing ConDem public spending plans for the first year in government, ie 2015/16. There is a miserable and heart-chilling logic to this. Public expenditure settlements for FY15/16 will have been announced before the next General Election, along with the ConDems last throw (hopefully) of the budgetary dice with tax bribes to the electorate so outrageous that even the most gullible will realise they are being conned.
Balls' job is therefore to show his economic wizardry by feeding the party doorstep lines to reawaken electoral passion for Labour. It won't come from more of the same, austerity-lite.
Trickett could usefully get up to speed on pre-election inclusive budgeting (admittedly, still very nerdy at the moment), planning for living wage implementation, and setting timetables post-election for transferring tax and spend powers to local authorites, and lifting borrowing restrictions on devolved nation, regional and local government spending on infrastructure, especially housing.
This may seem a tad radical, but that we are told is why Trickett was appointed.
Time for action.