One departing member of the Labour party’s staff said to me today: "The building reeks of depression." People are being made redundant, posters are being taken down. There is very little to cheer.
But as two other candidates who want to be the party’s next leader join the contest - Mary Creagh and perhaps Tristram Hunt - Labour must gee itself up for to organise a contest that will set its future direction, and fast.
Now the timetable is set, the next task is to form the electorate. After the embarrassment of claims of vote rigging in Falkirk, Ed Miliband changed the rules for union voting.
Ironic, given that he edged ahead of his brother because of the backing of individual members. But his rule changes could have a profound impact on who gets a say.
Members of unions that are affiliated to the party - around 2 million people - used to get a vote automatically, if they chose to use it. Most of them didn’t but their votes altogether counted for a third of Labour’s electoral college no matter how many of them bothered to fill in the forms.
Not any more. Labour has moved to one member, one vote, where MPs, MEPs, party members and "affiliate members" have an equal status. Crucially though, union members only get a chance to vote if they sign up or affiliate as individuals. This has to be proactively done; unions can’t just transfer their lists onto the party’s voting lists with impunity.
We just don’t know what impact this could have on the race. Believe one theory and in the next few weeks the unions will scramble to get as many of their members as possible to become affiliates, with potentially as many as 200,000 of them signing up to have a say. They will certainly try, and try hard, keen to exert as much influence as possible.
But I’m told so far, only about 500 union members have taken the opportunity to do so. That number will inevitably rise, and perhaps rise very fast indeed, giving union members a say that could rival the party’s membership, standing right now at around 230,000.
But that is also rising, and the party is also making its own efforts to sign up new "affiliates" – members of the public who can pay £3 for the right to vote in the leadership election without becoming full party members.
So tonight there is nothing certain about how much influence the unions will really have over the choice of the next Labour leader. What is clear is that there is no one candidate yet the unions will stand behind.
Equally, there is no one candidate they would collaborate to block – almost as important. One union boss said to me they may yet try to tempt someone else to be a candidate. Endorsements will matter, but individual members aren't necessarily swayed by their leaderships.
Under Ed Miliband the suggestion that the unions had a grip over Labour HQ prospered because of the manner of his election, and it stuck to him as he did take the party to the left and frankly, had plenty of other problems.
But as the party looks to the General Election in 2020, and maybe beyond, the votes of union members will be important, but entirely decisive, maybe not.
The party’s bigger problem right now is finding a leader who can convince the party and the public Labour can be relevant again and fast.
You can watch a clip of our interview with Len McLuskey, the boss of the biggest union, Unite, here. Or catch the full encounter on Newsnight tonight at 10:30pm.