Plot or no plot - history comes back to bite Balls

The shadow chancellor Ed Balls has denied that today's leaked documents in the Daily Telegraph amount to a plot led by him to oust Tony Blair in favour of Gordon Brown following the 2005 general election

However, while some commentators agree that 'plot' or 'conspiracy' may be too strong, it's hard to find any political commentator today who agrees that the incident can be written off as ancient history.

The documents illustrate the strength of the feud between the Blairites and the Brownites. As such, they reopen bitter wounds in the Labour party and are potentially damaging to Balls's reputation.

At least the journalists were right all along. The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson argues: "To all those who said journalists were making up, exaggerating or speculating about the rift at the top of the last Labour government it's long past time for an apology.

"Ed Balls and Ed Miliband were, undoubtedly, Brown's key lieutenants at this time. But, then, we knew that didn't we? Or were you one of those who thought the media were spinning and should take politicians' denials at face value?"

Blogger Guido Fawkes says the documents "literally have Ed Balls's fingerprints all over them, hard evidence of what all of Westminster believes, that he was at the heart of the malign 'forces of hell' which blighted New Labour."

Balls always denied the allegations, says Guido, but the documents make it clear they were accurate.

Michael White in the Guardian says the Telegraph leak "doesn't reveal much about Ed Balls that we didn't already know. He denied plotting against Blair ­ - and he still does ­ - but no one I know took such denials seriously.

"For all his energy and intelligence, the bullying strain still shines through and it troubles some of Ed Miliband's advisers."

History, yes, but they're still significant. Benedict Brogan, as deputy editor of the Telegraph, which got the scoop, could be said to have a vested interest in the leaked documents being super-significant.

He believes they are significant for what they mean to the Labour party today. "Labour has been in denial about what happened to Tony Blair and how Gordon Brown came to be leader, with all the terrible consequences that followed.

"Remember, Labour has yet to go through any kind of truth and reconciliation process to address the civil war that ripped through it.

Until now the evidence has been second-hand... Today however it is there in black and white, not only what Mr Brown thought of Mr Blair, but what he wanted to do to him. And organising it all is the now Shadow Chancellor.

"The Ed Balls files confront the Labour party with the inconvenient truth that defines it today: it has rewarded with power those very men and women who plotted night and day to hound out of office the party's most successful leader. Faced with this evidence, can the party allow this to pass without asking itself ­ and them ­ some pointed questions?

The First Post's Westminster insider, the Mole, is in agreement. "It is little wonder" that the Labour party is seeking to dismiss the documents as history for they reveal "what a bunch of power-mad zealots were grouped around Brown, some of whom remain in the power game today".

Or as Guido Fawkes put it: "Some will say this is a matter of only historical interest, they are wrong, the relevance to today is what it reveals about the character of Ed Balls, who still harbours the ambition to lead the Labour Party." ·