Is the McDonagh insurgency doomed to failure?

mitch

He will spend so much time fire fighting this rebellion he wont have any time left to ruin the country so its not all bad.Every minute he stays just increases Camerons majority and labours time in opposition oh and gives us all a good laugh I would think Blair is having a good chuckle too.

Tom Bates

I see the NoTW is now putting your column online.

Simon

Having watched John Hutton floundering with his less-than-convincing line this morning with Andrew Marr, I believe that eventually it will bear fruit.

Hutton could not bring himself to fully back Brown using various forms of language of support and doing the job. With ministers saying that the policies are right and that they just need to communicate better - the frustration will build. The policies are clearly not working - you can't just repeat them until we see how wonderful they are.

Hutton et al will eventually break.

jgc

It amazes me how little political commentators actually know about politics.

It is far too early to suggest that this plot has run out of steam, on one level it looks very disorganised but in fact what is happening is a stream of individuals appearing in the news bulletins one after another to keep the media interest up - this really does have the feel of an organised media campaign. Personally I hope not but I think we shall see more mps - possibly pps's and junior ministers emerge over the next few days in the run up to conference. You also have to question John Hutton's performance on Andrew Marr this morning, he really did make clear where he stood without forcing Brown to sack him.

The question that needs to be asked is who might have the necessary media skills, experience and contacts to organise such a campaign, why do they hate Brown so much and who are they trying to install in his place?

As to why Labour MPs seem to be reluctant to get rid of Gordon Brown, perhaps loyalty and dislike of the media play a significant part (should journalists expenses be made public?) but also the realisation that a prolonged and divisive period of infighting and navel gazing will do more harm to their electoral prospects than Gordon Brown's many faults

David

The main effect of this in the short term is to completely overshadow the LibDem conference. Which is interesting.

Nicholas

Classic lefty bun fight. Their whole thing is ideology divorced from reality, rather than pragmatism, tolerance and reason, so they always end up stabbing each other (metaphorically and literally), purging factions and individuals, consigning millions to misery and death and doing a nice line in distractive smoke screens, usually involving demonising or blaming other people and/or groups for the ills they have caused. Student politics meets the Borgias.

The epithet of the Left? Never was so much spent on so many for so little. Never was so much destroyed by so few for so little.

I detest these people and wish them gone from British politics. They have done such huge damage to our country. It has weathered centuries of internal political upheaval and external threats but could not withstand this particular enemy from within - the bloody Left. In the last 60 or so years their ruinous, envious and arrogant ideology has thrown out the good with the bad in roughly 80/20 proportions. Without the conservative rearguard interregnum of Thatcher I dread to think what this country would be like now.

The most dangerous thing the British people have ever done was to give arrogant nutters like Brown, Harman & Co., power over them.

It is supremely ironic that the likes of Toynbee et al now complain of bullying characterisation being leveled at them. They have been dishing that out to their "class war enemies", real or imagined, for decades and finally the worm is turning. The ghastly mob who emerged in 1968 and cloaked their way to become the destructive grandees of the "new" Left have finally been rumbled. They must now realise that the Left wing is most certainly not the natural and anointed political religion for the British. I doubt we will see any humility or recalcitrance from this self-deluding shower though. It will all be someone else's fault.

The natural dividing line for our politics, until the rise of Nasty Labour, was between liberals and conservatives. I hope that it returns to that and that Britain can somehow regain its naturally moderate and modern mindset, that served the country so well for centuries, and obliterate the imagery of East German nightmare that New Labour has foisted on us..

Ian C

Fail it won't because the outcome will be a better one for the country than the staus quo - however long the impact takes to get rid of GB.

All this has so far directly achieved is confirm what we all know - he is doomed. These moves have simply broughtt the end game - and the next election - that much closer. Still can't yet see how the coup de grace will come, but like Christmas, it is coming - and I would bet that it's before then.

Miranda

Well said Nicholas.

David C

The worst outcome for the Labour Party is, as the Conservatives believe, a failed coup that leaves Labour MPs drowning in their despair, along with the hatred of Brown by the public now being turned on those MPs for failing to get rid of the walking disaster.
What has been overshadowed by the past days events, is the demolition of Brown’s measures to ameliorate the fuel bill problems which people will face this winter. They pretended to deal with the problems on behalf of the more vulnerable in society, yet were proven, on closer examination, to be an ill-thought out rag-bag of ideas designed as nothing more than a fig-leaf for the total vacuity of policy.

Brown’s answer to rising fuel prices and the oncoming winter is ‘turn out the lights, close the curtains and wrap up warm’.

To call this merely ‘inadequate’ is to approach the levels of generosity that Brown has exhibited while spending taxpayer’s money.
This, the latest of many studied insults to people’s intelligence had one purpose: to allow Brown to go to Conference with something – anything – to turn aside a few of the barbs aimed in his direction. Rather than actually dealing with people’s real problems, Brown is preoccupied with his problem; his position at the top of the greasy pole.
And this is the reason for removing him: his betrayal of Labour values.
And, in turn, if Labour fails to remove him they likewise will be guilty of that same betrayal.
For over a decade NuLabour gave as the excuse for abandoning some of its founding principles, that these core beliefs interfered with its ability to address the needs of the disadvantaged.
They continually intoned their mantra “If we are not a Party of the poor and disadvantaged then we are nothing”.
With apologies to Nicholas; Labour has to decide if it wishes to become an ideology-free party and that is what a continuing Brown Leadership will mean.

Teledu

Good post Nicholas. Sadly, even if we in Britain want to turn our backs on socialism and the kind of politicians it has produced, we'll still be ruled by such people via the EU.
Perhaps the greatest single boon to Britain would be for us to vote again on membership of the EU (well - have a initial vote really, as the last vote was for membership of a "common market" not the monster we now find ourselves beholden to).
What a shame the oppostion seem so reluctant to let the people decide on this, but it seems they, like our zanuLabour gov't don't trust the people or at least seem to believe they know better.

TGF UKIP

Another brilliant post, Nicholas, and as is now usual I find myself in agreement with you.

My question is, though, that post 2010 assuming a Cameron Tories victory will we have a change of government and governance as opposed to simply a change of parties.

My fear and belief is that we will not as so much of not only the New Labour agenda has been espoused by Cameron and co but the accompanying bullying political correctness and greenery, the same sort of ferocious vindictive party discipline (Hastilow and Mercer) and the same gerrymandering of party procedures to get the Leadership's way (the disgrace of the MEP's re-selection.)

The worst government faced by the worst and most lightweight and lame opposition for at least fifty years.

Carrie

Why doesn't Frank Field become a stalking horse?

Hereford

I think this will fizzle, because, when you think about it, who will actually stand, who is not a stalking horse.

Milliband? Balls? Harperson? Straw (maybe)?

Whoever takes over will preside over the worst defeat that the Labour Party has ever suffered.

Therefore it is likely that, by coming forward now, they will be ending their career in senior politics. Unless they can engineer a return like William Hague. In which case, they can still look forward to several years on the back benches.

No, I still think the party will hunker down and limp on until 2010.

I would be exstatic to be proved wrong though.

NorthernJohn

Fraser, you say that Brown clinging on until 2010 is best for the Tories. But if he goes now, there would HAVE to be an election, which the Tories must win.

Perhaps not with the biggest possible majority, but I think smaller majorities are better anyway.