Does Brown hate Cameron and Osborne so much that he'd give up his job to defeat them?

Bruce, UK

Is it April 1st already?

Richard Holloway

It's not the top two, it's the hatred of the whole Tory party that defines Brown's politics. It's also why he'll never win a general election. Hatred of a different philosophy of government is not a good driving viewpoint to go about leading Britian.
If anyone can find an interview with Brown about his politics that doesn't include him defining himself in opposition to Conservatism I'd like to see it. I haven't read one yet.

Fergus Pickering

And where, pray is the vote-winning alternative. Is it Harriet or Mrs Balls?

AndyLeeds

Richard is right: Brown hates Conservatism so much (like so many others in the Labour Party) it has clouded what little judgement he ever had. It has been hate which has defined his politics and it is hate which will destroy him, and his destruction can't come a day too soon. And just look at the mess the idiot is leaving the rest of us.

Dewi

I'm not convinced that Brown would resign even after losing the General Election.

Stonewall

Brown is as great as a man can be without morality and this story if true exemplifies all I detest in him and his pseudo "socialist"kind where their version of equality means;"Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than me". That this deeply flawed man can believe this is truly frightening for us all.

Thomas Cussans

The point is not that Brown would go because he might think it would help prevent a Tory victory. He would go because he couldn't bear the humiliation of losing.

If you don't fight an election, you can't lose it.

Brown has no interest in anyone or anything other than himself.

stereodog

I can't see this happening because it would involve another unelected PM being forced on the country. Perhaps I am being naive given Labour's track record but there must be some voices advising Brown that to go without calling an immediate election would provoke a constitutional crisis.

richardj

Disfunctional, unelected and found to be incompetent. The electorate knows this and each day he remains in place is an affront to any reasonable analysis. The Labour Party can remove him but does not have the intelligence, wit or ability to do so.

The country suffers and hopefully will remember the cause of the problems.

Anan

So it's highly likely that Brown will stay on? Well duh! As if he cares more about the Partei than himself. Anywa, What rubbish, what would you expect from the Red Press except adulation for their Glorious, Dear, Chairman and Leader.

Peter Wilson

Mike at political betting put forward a similar theory last year, he thought Brown might cite health grounds due to his bad eyesight, as a reason.

strapworld

Well, that tells us everything. What other politicians did everything to stop another party gaining power? Hitler!Stalin!Lenin!Mao! you name them they are either right wing dictators or communists.

IS Brown a communist is the question. Then one should consider, is the present financial scandal really a communist plot? Brown talked about a New Order! is communism that new order?

Will the Civil Contingencies Act become the tool to deny us all a general election?

Brown is a most contemptible individual.

Jamie

He also spent much of the last 10 years defining himself in opposition to Blair.

Alfred T Mahan

We can but hope. But given that the invariable rule of the 'one-eyed Scottish idiot' is to do the polar opposite of what he says, I think it's unlikely in the extreme.

Paul B

I agree with Richard Holloway, hatred is not a good driving viewpoint from which to lead a country. Hatred of the level Brown and other socialists have of the Tories, becomes all consuming. It that hatred that defines them. Gollum like. Their precious hatred of the party they still perceive as representative of the privileged upper class,evil factory-land-mine owner, oppressor and exploiter of the heroic ragged trousered working man.The country in the main has moved on from this,many in the Labour party haven`t. Brown is a (slightly) more sophisticated Skinner, an old fashioned class warrior and tax and spender. You have to be able to see the wood from the trees nowadays, what works, be pragmatic. Brown isn`t able to do that, Blair could, Brown can`t.

Alex

What Steve Richards fails to grasp is that it is Labour, not Brown that is the problem (not that Brown isn't a 'problem')

.... it doesn't matter who is leading the party into the next GE.

Steve Richards ... grasping at short straws again

Andrew Cadman

The tragedy of the Labour Party is that it long ago left behind its Methodist roots and became a party entirely based on engineering sub-marxist uptopias. Its solutions to problems are almost always based on idealism rather than practical or empirical understanding of a problem.

When their solutions fail to bring about heaven on Earth, which is invariably the case, utopianists always need a scapegoat to blame. I certainly saw this growing up in hard-left Sheffield during the 1980s, where businessmen were vilified: it must be their fault that clause 4 socialism hadn't worked.

Socialists will always need to hate the Tory enemy as an emotional crutch - blaming them allows them to explain why utopia hasn't arrived yet.

DATman

What vote-winning alternative?

Draughtsman

Thomas - I was going to post in the same vein but you beat me to it! I still believe that Brown will hang on to what he perceives as power for as long as he can, but as I have blogged before I believe that he doesn't do elections unless he is sure of winning as he cannot stand the idea of rejection or being personally criticised. On that basis he could just get right out of politics before 2010 just like Blair.

Gordon Brown

The election defeat - Which began in America - Will not be my fault.

Wily Trout

Surely Brown can't hate Conservatism that much, with all his PFI arrangements and cosy relationship with bankers. Isn't it just middle England and all it stands for that he hates?

Iris Thackeray

He knows that when Labour lose the election the Conservatives will find out the full extent of his and Blair's mendacity. All their shameful, fraudulent, incompetence will be on display and they'll have nowhere to hide.

TrevorsDen

Cussans is right in his analysis.

But one has to wonder just what kind of reality Brown is living in. He never saw he was being rooked by the bankers so what really does he think is happening now? He probably believes in his own smoke and mirrors.

Its said Brown hates the Conservatives - well I am a conservative voter so that must mean he hates me. Well he should know that the feeling is mutual. I hate loath and detest the lying conniving duplicitous thick bastard.

And that goes for his 'Second Home' Secretary as well. Remarkably there was someone on QT last night who claimed to live opposite her in London and he suggested she spent very little time there.

Ray

It was Edmund Burke who once said that "a great empire and little minds go ill together".

Polly and Alice's mum

Surely, there IS no vote winning alternative?

Sally Chatterjee

One of the more delicious moments coming up in the future is the prospect of Brown giving a concession speech when he loses the election. It could be quite exquisite to see him finally admit he's got it all wrong.

Max Kaye

He'll have to be crowbarred out of No.10 - the remnants of his gnawed nails making ghastly furrows in the veneer of his battered and beaten desk.

Hawkeye

Peter Hoskin said: "I think it's highly unlikely that Brown won't remain Labour leader until the next election. "

Didn't your English teacher tell you to not never use a double negative?

:-O

On the Brown leadership front, I still think that he'll be pushed internally when the polls slide UNDER 25% and stay there.

Summer election!

MikeF

If Gordon Brown were to resign then any successor would have zero credibility as Prime Minister and would have to call an election right away. The country would not stand a second 'unelected' PM for any length of time - if any successor tried to hang on they would only make the situation worse (from the Labour point-of-view). So Brown going would have little effect. But perhaps there is a chance that Brown might call an election later this year just to avoid the appearance of grimly hanging on till the last minute. After all he did day he would give the country a chance to judge him.

Hawkeye

Thomas Cussans said: "He would go because he couldn't bear the humiliation of losing."

This is actually a very good point. Other than fighting in a safe Labour seat that would elect a chimp if it wore a red rosette, Brown has almost never actually fought an election on his own.

He may have coordinated the Labour elections which Blair fronted, but it was Blair that people "voted for".

If he continues his past pattern then he may bottle out and leave some other poor sod to pick up the pieces. It would, however, be the ultimate betrayal of Labour - jumping ship with an election only a year away and proving just how unfit Labour is to be running anything.

Anan

So it's highly likely that Brown will stay on? Well duh! As if he cares more about the Partei than himself. Anywa, What rubbish, what would you expect from the Red Press except adulation for their Glorious, Dear, Chairman and Leader.

Ian C

Why would the gang of MP's who were willing to challenge Broon last Sept not return for the killer blow?

The logic is the same, the timing less propitious, but the need is not only greater but absolutely explicit to even the most loyal Brownite.

seb

Apart from Iain Dale, has anyone else remarked on the BNP victory in the Sevenoaks District Council by-election? This is in Kent! If this mini-quake doesn't serve as a warning to the cabinet that Labour's on the fast track to oblivion, nothing will. Brown's political future has passed the point where it's of any relevance or interest to us.

Verity

Thomas Cussans makes a good point above. It's not that he can't bear the thought of the Tories winning as the thought of the great Gordon Brown losing.

Hawkeye - That wasn't a double negative. Pete was correct.

Whatever happened to the notion of Gordon forming a national government that some of you were predicting a couple of weeks ago?

Peter Wilson

Further to my previous post, Mike at politicalbetting has commented again on Brown standing down:

http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/20/could-gord-go-to-put-the-kybosh-on-cameron/

Trafalgar

Brown is useless at being PM but he is a canny political strategist. Remember that is was Brown - after Milburn had not upped his game - who bossed Labour's re-election in 2005. Brown was also chief election strategist in 97 and 01.

Brown will try anything to thwart the Tories and will use every trick at his disposal to do so. Expect increasing overtures towards the Lib Dems -particularly Cable - to form an alliance as Labour's ratings stick at 25%.

Laura Fox

Peter Hoskin does not know what ideologies are. He must be young, less than 40.

"True" labour people see (via their ideology) the Tories as an evil organisation, defending illegitimate, murderous privileges of undeserving, spoilt, cruel, oppressors. Etc.

Blair was not one of these "true" labour people. Brown is!

Brown would do anything to stop a Tory government!

The Bellman

@Trafalgar: Even if he was once upon a time, I don't think Brown *is* a good political strategist. He's a reasonably capable tactician whose adequacy is inflated by the incompetence of his opponents, and whose grotesque inadequacies, moral and intellectual, are exposed when up against a comparable opponent.

HFC

Gordon 'Prudence' Brown will be carefully considering the most prudent time to call an election and whether or not he will continue until then as PM.

Prudential considerations will always lead a prudent person to be careful to avoid undesired consequences of their actions.

That is of course why a recent self-styled 'prudent' chancellor of the exchequer took such carefully considered steps to conceal the consequences of his alarmingly policies concerning the conduct of the fiscal affairs of this nation.

Frank P

I don't think there are enough conservatives left in this country to secure another Tory government at the next election. Which means of course that we will have to make do with David Cameron's party. Wonder what he will call it, when he HAS made up his mind about all the important issues and bothers to publish a manifesto? If I might suggest a new moniker: "NOT QUITE THE LABOUR PARTY BUT SOMETHING SIMILAR WITH CAMERON LEADING IT INSTEAD."