Diary: Time for Ed to come out as the Black Baron's pal

Could Ed Balls' darkest hour herald the breaking of a glorious dawn?

In the calamitous wake of Blinky's private trade union Unite backing Ed Miliband for Labour leader, we turn in desperation to an unlikely deux ex machina. Yes, it's Conrad Black, whose friendship with Blinky was revealed in yesterday's Independent on Sunday.

They met at the Bilderberg Group, where plutocrats and their political puppets bond in the woods via primal screaming and the formation peeing known as "cross swords". Such a mutual shine did they take that Blinky twice hitched home from a Bilderfest on Conrad's private jet. Although Team Balls has yet to confirm that this neo-Longford nipped over to the Florida penitentiary to cheer his old mucker up, it's time for Conrad to return the favour now he's been sprung. What could do more to improve Blinky's standing among the party's private plane-worshipping Blairite wing than the endorsement of Lord Black?

Should his lordship stay silent, however, Blinky must cut his losses, quit, and resolve the dilemma of which Milibandroid to support. Go for his arch enemy David and he'll look an opportunistic oaf. If he backs Ed and David wins, he's finished. With the brothers edging towards the full-blown feud, or broigus, Blinky must position himself as bridgehead between them and consigliere to both. If there's one thing Labour needs as it strives to escape the recent past, it's a third man.

* David Miliband isn't having much luck either, bless him, and with the odds shifting against him he will wish to make a declaration. David would like to state categorically that if his little brother wins, he will serve under him in any capacity Ed sees fit. Altruistic loyalty to the party is paramount now, and the members will expect no less.

* I was intrigued to read, meanwhile, how Michael Gove threatened to rupture his colleagues' sides at Friday's political cabinet by describing the Miliboys as "geeky". In next week's ITV4 kitchen utensil reality show Coalition Pots and Labour Kettles, Vince Cable calls Liam Byrne "baldie", Ann Widdecombe dismisses Harriet Harman as "that domineering old haddock", and Eric Pickles refers to John Prescott as "the archetypal portly northern working-class fig leaf for the public school knob at the top".

* Sympathies to David Davis on being earwigged at the pub by Financial Times snitches, who he so credibly insists "misheard" him comparing Cameron and Clegg to the cowboys of Brokeback Mountain. So they did. What David in fact mentioned was a "bric-a-brac mountain" – a reference to the odds-and-sods stall Messrs Cameron and Clegg will run at the Whitney summer fete. Anthony Howard, Vernon Bogdanor and other top political historians identify this as "the cruellest Tory-homosexual confusion" since John Major was misheard chasing the pink vote with his "back to gay sex".

* Congrats to Eamonn Holmes, the Rosa Parks of lipids, on his human rights victory in preventing a fearless BBC broadcasting gags about his girth. Until the legal letter reaches us, this column pledges to fill the chasm. This week's effort is adapted from the Best Yo Mama So Fat Jokes section of a website. Yo Holmes so fat, when he wear one of those "X" jackets, helicopters try to land on him. Next week, what people think when Yo Holmes's beeper goes off.