Has Brown bought himself more time?

Peter Wilson

This is all getting rather tedious, rather like a parent who keeps on telling a child ‘This is your final warning, do that again and….etc etc’, the Labour seems to be stuck with; ‘there will be a challenge after the London Mayoral and local elections, then Crewe by-election, then Glasgow East by-election and so on. The Labour party is just as pusillanimous as its leader.

David C

This is pointless.
There will always be 'one more chance' for Brown.
The Labour Party is incapable of dumping him. He is the anchor preventing dissolution while at the same time he is the cause of the Party's problems.
If Brown goes then the Party will break up - the Labour Party was always one big faction-fight.
What glued them together was the prospect of gaining and holding power. This was the bargain offered by Blair.
The Party, and most importantly Brown, thought that the whole wagon would roll on without the tarnished front man. With the other architect (the 'Iron Chancellor', the 'Moral Compass', the 'Great Clunking Fist') in charge, people would see and love NuLabour for what it was.
But people dream.
People liked Blair for the bigger and better, bright and shiny Britain he promised.
Instead they are stuck with a rotten grey monolith of an authoritarian future presided over by people who fill them with disgust. People who seek to interfere in other peoples lives down to the smallest details.

The stories of punishments meted out to such a bunch in 'the Old West' are apocryphal;
but truly this ridiculous Labour 'Government' needs tarring and feathering, then running out of town on a rail.

King Prawn

David Miliband should make the following calculation before deciding to take Brown:-

1. If we leave Brown in power to the next election, the Labour Party would be slaughtered. The majority of the MPs still in place would be of the left with the result that Jon Cruddas will become the next leader. Result - Labour will be out of power for three maybe four terms.

2. If I challenge Brown and win, I may not win the next electio but I could limit the losses and maintain some control over party policy (i.e. the Labour Party will not put in vote losing policies into the mainfesto). We, may therefore, be in a position to recover and win the following election if the Tories do not have a successful first term.

It's a no brainer, Miliband must go for it now!!!!!

Martin

Getting rid of Brown means a general election. Therefore the PLP will not get rid of him. Hundreds of Labour MP's would be out. Their thinking is: let's put off retirement till 2010.

The country cannot afford two more years of drift, but that's what we're going to get.

Nicholas

David C - all is well written. ". . . a rotten grey monolith of an authoritarian future presided over by people who fill them with disgust. People who seek to interfere in other peoples lives down to the smallest details." is masterful.

You have encapsulated New Labour and our immediate New Labour future. The sad reality is that most of those deluded people still believe in the coerced socialist way to Utopia and that the end justifies all the means.

I do not yet see a credible, articulate destruction of this myth by Conservative politicians. Perhaps in part, but only in part, because the media is still so firmly in the hands of the charlatans of the Left. However in the main part the narrative of the Conservatives is still more about the issues rather than the ideology, the symptoms rather than the disease itself.

On these pages runs a different narrative and it is a common one. Only when the Conservative message resonates with the many wistfully shaking heads will the madness that is modern Britain be roundly confronted and the stubborn retreat of socialism become a rout.

Hereford

Ah yes King Prawn, but he would also have to calculate that, in losing the election, he would also lose the position as leader of the party, having led them into a defeat.

Thus he might save the party, to a degree, but only through self sacrifice.

Anyone care to give odds on Milliband putting the party, or the country for that matter ahead of his personal survival and advantage?

...

Thought not :o)

Rob Gordon

Has Brown bought himself more time? No, he's tied his own noose. By placing himself in charge of the campaign, and with Labour MPs making noises to the effect that this is his last chance, the Glenrothes by-election has exclusively become a plebiscite on Brown's tenure as PM. There is no way he can survive it.

TPR

"more time" to further his scorched earth policy. Woe is us!

cuffleyburgers

Rob Gordon - your analysis is correct. Chances are then of a GE in spring.

David C & Nicolas - baeutifully put, the Tories have to begin now selling an attractive ideology. They have started to come up with some vote winning policies; in order to accomplish a satisfactory routing of socialism in this country it is necessary to weave these threads into a rope of a suitably pleasing colour to put round Labour's neck and string'em up.

Keith

If and,hopefully,when Brown loses the Glenrothes election, his credibility will have surely run out and the long knives will come looking.

Hereford

Labour MP's will make lots of noise, but they won't hang him. They know that whatever the timing of the next GE, many of them will lose their seats.

As MP's are naturally self serving, money grabbing worms they will want to delay that day for as long as possible.

The party will rumble, MP's will grumble and ministers will posture, but nobody will stick the knife in Gordon Brown.

Sorry, but this is just going to drag on and on until the last possible moment for calling a GE.

Worst of all, the only tactic I can see GB utilising over the intervening period is extreme scorched earth.

Why? Because he is a nasty, venal and vengeful little man who would happily cause you, I and every citizen in the UK untold misery in order to exact revenge on the eventual winners of the GE and on the citizens themselves, for not acknowledging him as the Great Leader that he knows himself to be.

TGF UKIP

David C, Nicholas and Cuffleyburgers, I am in complete agreement with your analysis and your agenda. In particular, I am delighted to see the use of the word ideology.

Politics is about ideas and convictions, selling these to the voters and converting them to your view of the world and your agenda for change and progress.

It should not be about dodging any entanglement with ideology or, even worse, being apologetic for the deep rooted convictions of your party and that is why I have so much contempt for Cameron and his crew.

Can you imagine Margaret Thatcher or RR saying "Now whatever we do do, we must not let ourselves be seen as nasty conservatives. Let's look and sound like the other lot as much as we can and that way we won't frighten the horses or deluge the voters with doubt."

King Prawn

Hereford, Miliband will have to hold an election soon after he deposed Brown which he will lose but it will not be of a '97 landslide scale'.

He can always claim that he never stood a chance with the mess that Brown had left him.

There is no way that he could win a Labour Party leadership battle after a Tory landslide win because the remaining rump of MPs will be from the left.

He has to make his move now.

Verity

I don't think the Tories will get in as long as Cameron is the Leader. He stands for nothing. When people are minded to have a change, they want a CHANGE, and Dave is offering more socialist, nterfering, overweening twaddle.

The only person I recall over the last two years speaking of Cameron with any degree of enthusiasm, is Iain Dale. I don't know whether he still believs that Cameron has a secret plan and is keeping his powder dry, but I think that the rest of us - and the country - pretty well have Cameron figured out.

The Laughing Cavalier

I am constantly surprised by the number of people who insist that a new Labour leader will have to call an election. Why? Does anyone really think that the Guards and the Household Cavalry will march on Downing Street if there isn't one? Will the Royal Navy blockade Felixstowe and Tilbury? Of course not. All the new leader has to do is brazen it out. These NuLabourites aren't democrats. Short of full scale insurrection there is nothing the public can do. We're stuck with them until late Spring 2010

TGF UKIP

Nice one Verity! That really should get Tiberius and the other Dave groupies going.

brown is toast

The Labour Party can set an election date at any time in the next two years.
When that date is set is no business of the Conservative Party or anyone else for that matter.
It is interesting that Brown is trying to use the immediate election argument to save his own worthless neck.
Brown will be gone by Christmas and what an excellent Christmas present for the Tories.
Alan Johnson is Labour's best hope.

John de Finchley

@ King Prawn

Cruddas is going to lose his seat in 2010, along with Hoon, Hutton, Straw, Kelly, Robinson, Milburn, Jowell, Darling, McNulty, Clarke, Meacher, Jacqui Smith, and John Denham.

You know, after the landslide there's every possibility that amid the rubble there will only be Harpersonl, Balls, and Miliband left standing. Broon might actually win an election against that lot. It's not likely, I grant you, but is it impossible? Don't thiunk so.

Verity, you may be right but Cameron is 20 points ahead and don't forget the mid-term factor. The Conservatives are always less popular mid-term and this applies even when they're in opposition (Major, Hague and Howard all polled worse mid-term than at rhe subsequent election). So if Dave's 20 points in front now it could be 22 by 2010, leaving Labour with 120 to 140 seats.

The proceeds-of-growth mantra is more or less what Maggie actually did. He's no Maggie but he is, thank God, no Blair, Broon or any of the other leftist scum. He may not be perfect but he's the best we have.

John de Finchley

@ brown is toast -

Not quite. The PM gets to set the election date. Broon's nuclear weapon is that if they try to depose him he'll call an election and 2/3rds of the PLP will lose their seat and their place at the trough. He's spiteful enough to do it an dtake everyone down with him, so they don't dare. He'll stay until 2010 or until he wants to go, whichever is sooner, and not until some bunch of palace plotters pushes him.

Frank Pulley

Has Brown bought more time? I certainly hope he gets as much time as her deserves: for starters 15 years for bullion theft! And 15 years consecutive for theft of Pension Funds. That should see him out. He can have a few other charges t.i.c. Anyone like to list them?

"30 years! But I won't live that long, M'Lord!"
"Well, Mr Brown, do the best you can!"

TGF UKIP

Nice one, Frank Pulley, I always enjoy your posts.

Max Kaye

Hereford, why are you abusing worms? They're useful and productive creatures in the garden where they belong. Can you please amend your comment to, say, "MPs are self-serving, money grabbing slugs...."

Verity, virtually anyone could be the leader of the Conservative Party and beat Brown. People are so sick of him and NuLabour they'd happily elect your neighbour's yappy dog, Bark Obama.

Referendum: and NOW

OK, I'm stupid. I can't understand. A traitor and his cohort have given away the Mother of the Free --- for free --- into bondage. Why is everbody arguing about re-shuffles and elections in two years? Why are we letting them waste our time? Are we waiting for the EUSSR to give another 'vote' to the Irish, and fix the 'right' result?

Why do we not demand: A REFERENDUM NOW - back out of Lisbon and take back our country!!!!

Des Pairing

New leader (unlikely) or not, they will stick it out to the last minute for that most basic of reasons, money. Nothing save Her Majesty can prevent that. Now can we stop having these perennial articles about imminent change? Not gonna happen. A little excitement in Westminster Village while the country is going down the tubes. (If it IS only a village, how come it's allowed so many idiots?).

Frank Pulley

Des Pairing

Me too! But keep smiling, with a sense of humour like that you'll be fine.

Silent Hunter

Sorry?....who are UKIP again?

I can't believe that there are STILL people willing to support Labour.

I would have thought that saying 'Hitler was right' would be more popular than saying 'Labour are competent' LOL

www.oilofscotland.org

Narrow-minded Westminster Policies & Politicians are crushing the Scottish people's right to a better treatment than they are getting. www.oilofscotland.org The problem is Scotland discovered oil and since then we have been insulted, lied to, defrauded, had or funds raided and our marine borders moved from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Carnoustie. So for him to delay this election whilst secretly leading his party from Kirkcaldy is no surprise. Before you vote read the TOP SECRET McCrone Oil Report. Don't Vote Labour it is your 32 Million a Day stop giving it away. http://www.oilofscotland.org