Brown's last chance (or maybe not)

Vulture

Oh, no. Not again. The current Private Eye has a hilarious piece listing the number of 'last chances' Polly Toynbee has given Bruin in her columns. I counted eight, although according to her piece today she's finally given up on him. Until the next time. Don't be a Polly, Peter : you know, I know and the rest of the world and his wife knows, that he'll only come out of No. 10 in a box after his shattering defeat at the next GE 11 months hence, stumpy bitten fingers still scrabbling frantically at the lid. And I'm not even sure abt even then....

Tiberius

Brown doesn't have the human capacity to admit to himself that he'd failed to turn things around.

No, it's only going to be a GE (if we get one), or the Almighty that removes Brown from No. 10.

Bert

The PLP really are spineless, self interested lobby fodder. There should be a campaign of white feathers to shame these cowards.

Alfred T Mahan

Amongst his other problems he seems to have run out of Grecian 2000 when your snap was taken.

Kalvis Jansons

He is out of last chances. Just look at what the public think of him:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

The Laughing Cavalier

I've said it before and I'll say it again, no one in the Labour Party has the balls to wield the knife.

Grim Reaper

I suppose if they leave it long enough mortality itself will carry Brown off.

Boudicca

"Bringing out the Best in People: The Power of Positive Reinforcement" makes it clear that people don't do what you tell them to do unless there is an unwanted penalty - which the individual knows about in advance and is confident WILL be applied if he/she transgresses.

It is no good giving an instruction and warning what the penalty is for failure, if when the behaviour recurs, you don't immediately and consistently apply the penalty. If the penalty isn't applied, the 'reinforcement' acts in a counter-productive way.

Labour 'figures' keep warning Brown what the penalty for not upping his game or changing is, but they never actually apply it.

What they are actually doing is weakening their authority by reinforcing a belief that he (Gordon) can make promise after promise, but he doesn't actually have to do what they want. He's getting away with it time and again, so why should he bother changing.

(Teenagers do it all the time ... it's called 'trying it on.')

Russell

What on earth is the point of giving this old dinosaur another chance to change his ways? He's coming up to 60 and was always hopelessly rigid and entrenched in his misanthropic scheming and plotting, even in his twenties. His specious promises of "change" are entirely without substance.

They've already been forgotten; he's got through the latest crisis (or so he thinks), clung on to power by his stubby fingernails, and that's all he cares for.

What fools these mortals be, he's thinking. Swindled them again. Good for me. Clever old me to fool them all yet again.

Bluebottle

I am convinced Brown will not fight a general election as leader. He is too big a coward and too terrified of elections to do so, especially where he thinks he will lose. He will stand down through "ill health" some months before next May.

He has funked at least 3 elections; 1994 when he wouldn't stand against Blair; 2007 when he bullied the Labour Party into acclamation rather than an election and again later that year when he bottled out of an election when he might actually have won it.

He is too afraid of the electorate to put himself up for an election. I don't count his constituency because that is a done deal. G Brown is always returned.

Having chickened out, he will then be able to convince himself that he retired undefeated at the ballot box.

The Nightwatchman

MP's have a collective responsibility for the expenses. The public is out to get the MP's regardless of who their leader is?

Mp's think they will be better off with a new leader? The public think they will be better off with a new set of MP's.

nothing is going to save them. so they should accept their responsibility and go out with dignity?

kit salopian

I wonder if any listened to David Milliband this morning. He's as good as told us what he wants to happen

Three things stood out

1 The absence of the usual fullsome praise for Brown

2 At least two uses of the expression "this generation" . Am I the only one who thinks that he really means "generation" ie not Brown's generation?

3 And of course there was the endorsement of Johnson as "the candidate" Again pretty unambiguous.

Milliband and Johnny have had a "granita" moment , haven't they?.

they want Brown out - but at a moment of their own chosing

They do not want a General election this summer because they know that a leadership contest would trigger one.

SO they'll wait till the Party conference is over and then go and see Brown. And Mandy'll go with them (for the good of the party etc).

Stronghold Barricades

Brown is here until the last possible moment, so they'd better sharpen their polling pencils as it may be a higher turn out than usual

David Ossitt

Like 'The Man' empty words.

Nick

Has anybody in the Labour Party actually considered the possibility that after a catastrophic defeat in May 2010 Brown might still not step down ?

Julianlzb87

WOLF!!!

Not waving

Brown may remain, but let's face it Mandelson is the defacto Prime Minister now, he can break Brown any time he wants. In circumstances where Brown will do whatever it takes to survive we are now effectively ruled by the dark lord himself.

The Bellman

Leaders, as a rule, don't need plots in order to position themselves as successors. They need a clearly-articulated idea of what to do with their power, preferably supported by a record of sound judgement; strength of character; fortitude; and a degree of ruthlessness. These are not exactly the primary exports of Miliband Country.

I suppose you could argue that he has learned *something* from his disastrous banana putsch of last summer, demonstrating a flexibility of mind not associated with the current leadership menagerie, but that's hardly a ringing endorsement.

So he and Postman Twat might be playing a clever medium-term game, but that doesn't alter the fact that, to everyone outside the David Miliband Fan Club, he is an achingly implausible leadership figure, 'Granita moment' or not.

dorothy wilson

The slight - or perhaps big - problem with Labour MPs is that,despite their bleating about the poor salaries they receive, not many of them would be able to earn equivalent amounts in the real world. Hence they are clinging on to their seats for dear life - even if that means putting up with Brown.

That being said, my instinct is still that he will go at or around the Party Conference. May be wrong, of course.

Moraymint

Brown is an Orc; pretty much undestructible. Orcs are heinous creatures too.

Nicholas

More lives than a cat but probably more like Rasputin. Yes, of course, after the landslide Tory victory next year when Labour are left with no seats in parliament Brown will declare "the public want me to get on with the job" and claim they are just sending him a message to change his policies. A Tory government will mean chaos, he will say, and if only the majority of voters hadn't stayed at home he would have a clear majority.

He will then fill his whole cabinet with unelected peers and sit glowering on the doorstep of No.10.

Seriously though I hope the voters really punish Brown and Co. for dragging this out.

Oscar

I'm begining to believe this grand plot to oust Brown was all a big smokescreen concocted by the Prince of Darkness to get his own way in the cabinet - and that there never was a genuine plot at all. What if Blears and Purnell et al were simply tricked into believing there was backing to oust Brown, when all along it was a cunning plan to oust them, while causing such destabilisation that Brown had to keep Alistair as CoE, thus keeping Balls at bay. I wouldn't put it past that master of the dark arts. And who told us he was the saviour of Brown? Mandelson himself no doubt.

Travis Bickle

Completely off topic (of course) but I remember visiting a native village in Zambia years ago, and being told the story of the tribal chief who was so completely useless that they poisoned him and then buried him alive (apparently it took a week for him to die).

I've always thought we could learn a lot from the continent of Africa.

BlairSupporter

Ref David Ossitt:

"Like 'The Man' empty words."

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

Nothing like THE MAN.

Blair responded to the little people in his party - NOBODIES -no-one had even heard of and still haven't. (Although their guiding hand was Brown's and Balls.)

Blair said after the letter writers wrote, "I'd have preferred to do this in my own way", and he said he'd be gone within a year.

More's the pity. We now know why he was in no hurry to hand over to his successor. Well, ONE of the reasons he was in no hurry.

Come to think of it - Gordon could try the Blair tactic.

"I have got the message and I have decided I'll be off the scene by June next year".

You never know, it might work.

Frank P

Travis Bickle,

Can you acquire the hemlock? I've already packed my spade.

want my country back

... just wondering....whose side is Her Maj on?????
... she misread the mood of the Nation with Princess Di
... she is misreading the mood of the Nation, again
Do we need a Monarchy???

john miller

Trouble is, the revolving doors at the entrance to the Labour Last Chance Saloon.

Verity

Want My Country Back - HM most assuredly did notnot misread the mood of the country over Diana. She was completely in tune with the majority of us, not the noisy, hysterical, self-dramatising street performer minority. How bravely she bore the sight of all those hundreds of thousands of cellophane-clad "floral tributes". And, for reasons unfathomable, teddies and other soft toys.

David Ossitt

Want my country back: -

You make two statements and ask two questions; I will answer your statements first.

"... she misread the mood of the Nation with Princess Di"

Her Majesty has never misread the mood of the nation.

The fact that she did not want to join in with those who treat the death; of that sad, mad, serial adulterer, as a circus.
Was entirely proper and in accord with the vast majority.

"... she is misreading the mood of the Nation, again"

Utter nonsense; you have no way of knowing what she is thinking.

"... just wondering....whose side is Her Maj on?????"

She is now; and has always been on the side of the people, at her Coronation she gave an oath to serve our Country and she has done so magnificently.

Do we need a Monarchy???

Do you realy need to ask. The alternative would be unbearable, just imagine, a Blair, a Brown, a Cameron as a President or even a Peter Madelson.

Michael Booth

OK it's off topic (a bit) but how about a quick game of inventing new titles for Mandy.
How about Lord Mandelson of Foy, First Secretary of State, Grand Master of Spin, Backstabber-in-chief... anyway you get the drift.