But Mr Osborne's direct Labour adversary, Ed Balls, recently admitted to shedding a tear or two at episodes of The Antiques Roadshow and the US comedy Modern Family.
Mr Michael has made clear that he intends to stand again it is unreasonable, he feels, for him to resign over a matter beyond his direct control and Labour Assembly members will feel bound to support him.
Do they opt to keep him in the fold and take regular direct hits from the former leader or do they force his hand to leave and take direct hits from others for giving Labour a majority on a plate?
On the face of it, North Korea's decision to sentence a US citizen to 15 years' hard labour seems to be a direct challenge to Washington: another twist in the cycle of actions and rhetoric that have helped keep relations so tense over the past two months.
Cheaper labour costs are also encouraging foreign direct investment, which was up a quarter in 2007.
It allows him to tackle head-on some of the practices that have long hobbled Korean society the collusive relations between politicians and big business, resistance to direct foreign investment and the rigidities of the labour market.
But there was plenty of evidence too of tensions that Labour will have to resolve in more direct language pretty soon.
For the majority of German workers, companies' growing willingness to shift production to wherever labour and capital costs are cheapest is a direct threat to their jobs.
This will make life complicated for Mr Persson, who in his second term will be under pressure from employers to liberalise Sweden's labour market and to shift the welfare budget from direct transfers to spending on health care and education.
Senior Labour MP Frank Field has urged landlords to take "direct action" against housing benefit changes.
Health Minister Earl Howe argued that Labour would give the health secretary "wide powers to direct the board", which would undermine the government's aim to free the NHS from day-to-day political interference.
This, together with restrictive labour regulations, means that there is little non-oil foreign direct investment in Iran, except for pilot projects in the free-trade zones.
Friends of the Earth countered that Northern Ireland shouldn't be regarded as a place apart, citing examples, like the stabbing attack on Labour MP Stephen Timms, when politicians in Great Britain have been under direct threat.
In a working paper published earlier this year, its researchers focused on shake-ups in labour and product markets, as well as tax reforms like reducing the share of direct taxes (on income) in the total tax take.
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