The Shorter Jonathan Freedland

Despite all the sunny talk from Downing Street, this is hardening into a fixed view. And that produces some dark thinking. I heard one cabinet minister say that the choice for 2010 is now "between losing and getting slaughtered". That's right: senior Labour figures are working out how they can merely be beaten by the Conservatives next time, rather than being wiped out.

Now, I'm not one of those looking forward to a Labour defeat in 2010. But in my bleaker moments, I do wonder if it wouldn't actually be better for Brown to lose next time than to cling on for a Majoresque fourth term. It's quite clear that the party now needs to have an internal debate about its very purpose - a debate it missed last year by skipping straight to Brown - and that is precisely what a spell in opposition is for. Besides, a defeat in 2010 would be recoverable: it could be like 1970, with Labour returning four years later. But if the party were to soldier on, as Major did, 2015 would bring a massacre that would exile Labour for a generation - and the Conservatives would be back in for another 18 years. That would be bad for Labour - and worse for the country.

In short, we've screwed it up so badly over the past 11 years that we'd better run away and let some other poor bugger clean up the mess.

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