Brown won't send the young Turks into exile

James Forsyth 8:41am

Perhaps, the best guide to the mood in Brown world this morning comes in Jackie Ashley’s column in The Guardian. Ashley admits that Brown has had a terrible week and that his TV performance was less than convincing. Yet, she writes that Brown is unlikely to take his frustrations out on those who so stoked up the possibility of an early election:

"Contrary to reports, he isn't privately furious with ministers like Alexander or Balls; but he knows, and they know, they have all taken one heck of a hit. The young Turks are inevitably becoming the fall guys because there's a lot of resentment, not least from other senior ministers, that Brown has been listening too much to his own little group. The balance of influence may change, but don't expect Brown to send his young advisers packing. He knows that, far from them pushing him up a hill he didn't want to climb, he agreed the strategy every step of the way.”

Interestingly, the whole debacle seems to have reopened the Browinite-Blairite split. There were some unhelpful words in the Observer yesterday from one Blairite and Ashley complains that the Blairites will join in the Tory assault on his character, writing that:

“One of the less pleasant aspects of this is they will be backed up by gleeful Blairites, both politicians and journalists, who always loathed Brown and have been looking sick as a treeful of queasy parrots since he showed he could be rather a good Prime Minster after all. Brown's opponents are the Tories. As ever, his worst enemies are those who claim to be on Labour's side.”

The next challenge for Brown is to get through today’s press conference. If he continues to make mistakes, his internal and external critics will become louder still.