There were no great bombshells being dropped elsewhere or dramas unfolding in the Tory leadership race to distract attention away from Angela Eagle during her interview this morning on Today. But the Labour leadership hopeful might have been wishing there had been. It's a big day for Eagle, with the party's NEC deciding today whether Jeremy Corbyn will end up on the ballot paper in the leadership contest. Yet after a doomed leadership launch yesterday in which journalists walked out to go and cover Andrea Leadsom's decision to drop out, things didn't go much better this morning during her interview with John Humphrys. In a particularly awkward exchange, she was asked whether crying on air, as she had done, was really something a leader should do. She had a point about the importance of being in touch with emotions but then things took a bizarre twist when she told Humphrys: 'Well look, I'm not crying now, am I?'

It's clear, on the basis of her interview this morning, that Angela Eagle is riled. She sounded particularly furious when she thought she was going to be asked about a Corbynista meme doing the rounds on Twitter which is calling into question her voting record on issues such as Trident. Her answer to that point was to insist she was a 'loyal Labour party member' and that she was a 'northern girl from working class roots who understands modern life'.

But Eagle's problem isn't who she is, it's the mixed messages about who she is trying to appeal to in this race. Her pitch looked, on one hand, to be aimed at wooing those backing Corbyn. She insisted that Len McCluskey was a good mate, despite what he has had to say about those running against the Labour leader being involved in a 'squalid coup'. Eagle also went on to try and reach out to those on the left in her party by saying she was a 'trade unionist to my fingertips'. But Eagle is unlikely to manage to win much support amongst those backing Corbyn by trying to imitate aspects of the Labour leader. What's more, by trying to shadow Corbyn in some ways, Eagle could end up alienating those who are pinning their hopes on her being able to offer something different from who Labour have in charge at the moment. Eagle said this morning she was looking forward to a 'contest of ideas'. Based on what we've seen so far, it's a contest which is not going to end well for Eagle.