Liz Kendall has signed up editor of the LabourList blog, Mark Ferguson, as a senior adviser on her leadership campaign.

The appointment comes after Kendall became the first Labour leadership candidate to directly challenge Len McCluskey, with a letter telling the Unite boss to stop threatening Labour. But she also promised she would scrap any new Tory laws aimed at weakening employee rights.

Ferguson revealed his move this morning with a blog post in which he insisted that Kendall should not be painted as the keeper of the Blairite flame.

“But I’m sure of one thing – if I thought that Liz Kendall was the ‘Blairite’ candidate for Labour leader, I wouldn’t have given up something I’d worked so hard for and cared about so much to support her candidacy.”

The move comes as front-runner Andy Burnham has won the backing of Dan Jarvis and is reported to now have more than 70 nominations in the parliamentary Labour party. Yvette Cooper is also known to have a high number of backers.

Could the depth of their support make it difficult for a candidate such Kendall to gather the 35 nominations from MPs needed to get on the ballot paper?

That is the view of some in Westminster. But Ferguson's actions would suggest otherwise...

@singersz