“Kim has been a solid performer and this is a time in the electoral cycle that those choices are not there to be made,” Carmen Lawrence told the ABC this morning.

“If we were going to change leaders, there are other opportunities to do that, we’re now twelve months out from an election, probably less, if the Prime Minister is as strategic as he sometimes is, so the sensible thing for us to do is to get behind the man of experience, good-will and who has the interests of the Australian people firmly at the core of his interests.”

And that man still has Labor in the lead, 51 to 49 per cent, in two party preferred terms, according to Newspoll.

Beazley leadership may just be hanging on this slim thread.

There’s talk around Parliament House this week of influential figures in the ALP changing sides – but also talk that there’s been no move as neither side is sure of the numbers.

That could well explain this morning’s reports that Kim Beazley may face a call to stand down next week.

And it also allows enough time to firm up the numbers, should push come to shove.