Ed Balls & Ken Clarke: Leadership ambitions to remain in Notts?
Just as the dust settles on one election, it's head first towards another. Labour wants a new leader and Ed Balls has been polishing up his Nottinghamshire roots.
His location to launch his leadership bid as the next Labour leader was an interesting one. The backdrop was a community centre in the Netherfield district of suburban Nottingham.
It's no stranger to the big political occasion. Gordon Brown has been there. And cabinet ministers have beaten a path to its smart and welcoming cafe. The St George's Centre is also the venue for the local Sure Start, which helps new mums and their kids. It was a purpose-built New Labour project.
For Ed Balls, the venue illustrated for him one of Labour's achievements in office. It also offered the right picture opportunities for the national and local media. Unlike his leadership rivals, this was no rushed photo-op outside the entrance of Westminster or the dingy surroundings of a think-tank conference.
The former Schools Secretary and right-hand man to Gordon Brown also celebrates his non-metropolitian upbringing: Norwich-born, educated at schools in Nottingham and now representing a constituency in West Yorkshire.
"It's important that we listen to the party and the voters. We must find out why the Labour message at the general election had lost its appeal, especially in regions like the East Midlands," he told me.Netherfield is in the constituency of Labour's Vernon Coaker. He managed to hold onto his Gedling seat on an anti-Labour swing of less than 3%.
Elsewhere in the East Midlands, Labour lost 11 of its marginals with average swings of 7%. Altogether some 300,000 voters had switched their preference in this election from Labour to the David Cameron's Conservatives or the Lib Dems.
Ed Balls believes Gedling offers Labour some lessons: a local MP who is trusted, in contact with his community, communicates well and has an effective local party election machine.
"Losing seats like Sherwood was a huge blow. We had a really good candidate there. But on the doorstep, economic uncertainty and immigration were issues that people felt unhappy about. We need to learn lessons from that."A mug in hand, he has a blokeish charm and talks football - he supports Norwich City rather than Nottingham Forest.
"But I can't wait for their meeting in the Championship next season."He reminds me another "blokeish" politician with strong Nottinghamshire roots, who also aspired to lead his party: Rushcliffe's Ken Clarke. The Tories never quite trusted Ken on Europe. He's had virtually every top job government, except the one in Number 10.
Could the same fate await Ed Balls?
Hello. My name is John Hess. I'm the BBC's Political Editor for the East Midlands and this blog will offer my musings on the political scene from Westminster to closer to home. 
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