Word on the street is that Sir Peter Soulsby has picked up the backing of the some of the party’s key local influencers [read Keith Vaz] for his planned run at becoming Leicester’s elected mayor.

Privately, the two main opposition parties concede that whoever gets the Labour nomination is odds-on favourite to become the high-profile leader of the city, and you’d be mad not to put your money on Sir Peter.

But Soulsby’s likely candidacy is already well-known. He’s at Leicester town hall more than me these days.

So who else would throw their hat into the ring? There’s Veejay Patel, who I’d mark down as second-favourite in any race. Despite preferring to be a lower-profile council leader, it would make sense for him to use his incumbency to his advantage. He’s had a pretty steady few months at the helm of the council, with no policy gaffes so far.

Ignore those who persist in bringing up Keith Vaz’s name – the home affairs select committee chair would be taking a step down to run. Soulsby is in a bit of a different position as a relatively anonymous backbencher.

Meanwhile if Ross Willmott was going to stand he’d have probably made it known before now, but don’t rule it out. Although he’s presumably got his eye on the vacant Leicester South seat should Soulsby become mayor.

Manish Sood is suspended by the party, six months since his attack on Gordon Brown, so you needn’t worry about a bizarre run from him.

However the latest name in the frame, whispered to me by a contact on my mobile as I jogged along the canal this morning, is regeneration chief Abdul Osman.

“He fancies his chances,” my source confided, “so don’t rule him out.” This blogger rates Abdul, but isn’t convinced he could win the selection.

Tell me what you know, in confidence, using davidmaclean@leicestermercury.co.uk

With just 45 hours to go until the polls opened, Sood slammed the leader of his own party. As every media outlet in the country picked up the story, Peter Mandelson picked up the phone – and gave Manish an ear-bashing.

The phonecall ended on bad terms, and one of them hung up. Mandelson then toured the TV channels, making some questionable slurs on Sood’s character.

We all thought that was the end of the matter.

However word reaches me that Lord Mandelson, in his rage, forgot to withhold his mobile telephone number when he made the call.

Suddenly, the hyperactive councillor had a personal hotline to the Labour Party’s chief strategist. And, predictably, he’s been using it.

Lord Mandelson will presumably dial 141 before calling off-message candidates in future.

With a clever system of self-nomination, and a closing date well in advance of the meeting, you avoid nasty surprise challenges come party polling day.

Done and dusted in 60 minutes. I barely had time to finish a late night scotch egg and cup of coffee in the office before the Labour councillors were filing out.

I spoke to some councillors for their reaction, but we already had the results, of course, courtesy of Colin Hall‘s Twitter account. Keep on going like that and we’ll be out of a job…

Three contenders. Veejay Patel – front runner, Mary Draycott – the challenger, and Manish Sood – throwing his hat into the ring. In the end he got one vote. What on earth was he up to? I still can’t figure it out. Veejay won the day, and Mary put in a fairly respectable showing. There were two spoilt ballot papers. Wonder who.

Other party positions were dished out which have little relevance to those outside the party, but are interesting nonetheless.

Barbara Potter was nominated as chief whip. One councillor gave me a call after the meeting and growled: “One of the most outspoken critics of the council on issues like market policy and road conditions is suddenly in charge of maintaining order in the party and a united front. I can’t decide whether it’s genius or madness.”

Piara Singh Clair had dropped out of the chief whip race at the last minute. “Must have been offered a cabinet position,” winked one wag on leaving the meeting. We’ll wait and see. The cabinet will be selected on March 23.

One other point, it was confidently predicted by those closest to Coun Patel last month that he had 27 cast-iron votes in the bag. He ended up with 24.

So who are the trio that deserted him at the final hurdle, and why?

For a leadership contender, Manish Sood is awfully quiet. He didn’t say a word at full council on Wednesday. Another contender, Mary Draycott, didn’t say anything on the budget and instead got into a fair old flap with the opposition over the Walkers Stadium Market. I don’t know who came off worse, to be honest.

Veejay Patel, as expected, spoke quite a lot. He’s the finance lead, after all, so he had to deliver the budget. Plenty of little jibes at the opposition, gearing up for the possibility of becoming leader. Give the troops what they want.

But did anyone step forward to rally the troops? Perhaps with a little bit of opposition-bashing to throw some meat to party faithful? Yes indeed. Step forward, Stephen Corrall. “It’s getting like a leadership beauty contest, this,” announced Lib Dem leader Pete Coley with a smile after Stephen had a right old pop at the Tory and Lib Dem benches.

But a partisan tubthumper until the last, Ross Willmott delivered some of the most withering put-downs of the night.

He scolded Hussein Suleman for an “empty-headed rant”, said he never expected to see the day the Conservative group put forward a council tax rise which was higher than Labour, and even corrected a claim that he had “four minutes left” in his post as the meeting drew to a close.

Wagging a finger he said: “I’m council Labour leader until the 15th, actually.” He’s a stickler for the details, that Ross.

11am UPDATE: The comment by Ross in the comments section is, of course, correct. The positions of leader of the Labour group and leader of the council are two separate things. Happy to clarify that he will be leader of the group until March 15, but leader of the council until March 25. Complicated this, isn’t it readers?

Both the City and County councils hold their budget-setting council meetings today. I’ll be up at County Hall for 2pm, then zooming back to the town hall for the City’s meet-up at 5pm.

Both budgets are likely to be approved as a formality so it’s worth keeping an eye on some sub-plots instead.

It’s Ross Willmott’s last full-council meeting as leader and it’ll be his likely replacement, finance lead Veejay Patel, who’ll deliver the budget.

Will opposition criticism be directed at the outgoing leader, or will the focus turn to the man many think will replace him?

Two rivals have already emerged as leadership contenders – Mary Draycott and Manish Sood. If they speak to the proposals, their comments will be scrutinised for hints on how they plan to sell their candidacy to fellow Labour members. Could they even try to put some clear blue water between themselves and the front runner by giving some gentle “constructive criticism” on his budget proposals? Unlikely but worth keeping an eye on.

Elsewhere Patrick Kitterick, seen as part of Team Willmott, has been remarkably coy over his leadership ambitions. He was “considering his options” last time the Mercury spoke to him. If he speaks to the proposals, will it include full-throated praise of Willmott’s leadership of the council, or will he attempt to distance himself as he looks to his political future?

With the meeting being effectively a rubber-stamping exercise, the most interesting tidbits will be discovered in the corridors of power before and after the meeting. As ever, if I hear anything, I’ll let you know.