Can you put a fork in this government?

Tiberius

Like you, James, I have found it hard to convince myself that Brown is finished, despite all these goings-on. To my mind, New Labour has been a puff of wind throughout its whole life, but has still routed the Tories despite all the earlier things that went wrong once it got into government. Two other interesting and (to me) rather bold statements have come out in the last few days: firstly (if you can bring yourself to take him seriously) Nigel Farage's insistence that Brown will not make it to fight the next election, and secondly Janet Daley's assertion in the DT yesterday that Cameron will win the next election. In the normal course of human activity, I would agree with both those statements, but we are dealing with New Labour here, a machine designed to self-perpetuate in the most adverse of circumstances. The Tories should win - that is clear - but to do so (in any circumstances, actually), they will have to secure the million or so floating voters in the marginals, mainly in Midlands constituencies like mine. Which brings us back to Lord Ashcroft...

Trumpeter Lanfried

Tiberius: Can you think of a single thing which is going to come right for the government over the next twelve months?

TGF UKIP

To a substantial extent I agree with Tiberius and while I'm sure Brown himself will crack up long before the next GE, there are some massive and substantial differences between Labour post 94 and the Tories now. 1) Labour had a front bench who were all hungry for power, the Tories have a largely invisible front bench, many with external interests. 2) Labour had a tough,brutal but politically brilliant inner four - Blair, Brown , Mandelson and Cameron who ruthlessly ramrodded their polical formula into a reluctant but ultimately pliant Labour Party. The Tories do not possess their equivalents. 3) Their message might have been vague but it was all encompassing,as attractive to the previously hostile to Labour parts of the South, as it was to their Northen heartlands. Cameron's Big Tent, on the other hand, remains firmly pitched on a Waitrose car park in one of those pc suburbs of North London. 4) New Labour had not only a powerful political message and a highly disciplined media team to deliver it but an entirely pliant and almost supplicant media to unquestioningly deliver it. The present Tories have neither message, team nor media equivalents. 5) While Labour are presently in self destruct mode they are more ruthlessly determined to hold onto power than their rather fey 90's Tory equivalents. Moreover, in the past two years Cameron has shown a particular propensity to shoot himself in the foot and when he does again the Labour onslaught will be consequently more fearsome. The polls currently show that Labour has everything to fight for and the bookies have probably got it right - it's still virtually an even money contest.

Danielle

Brown has only been able to sustain his position as heir apparent for the last thirteen years through bullying and destroying anyone who might have been considered a threat to him. Now though the voters who can kick him out of office at the next election, and therefore destroy his dream of being elected Labour priminister, cannot be bullied or destroyed and I dont think Brown has got the leadership skills to win people round or the personality to cope with intense scrutiny and pressure a PM is subjected to. Also when weakness sets in it becomes even harder to recover hence events such as the five Generals speaking out in the way they did, they would never have dared do that to Blair.

Tiberius

TL: no I can't see anything good on the horizon. But New Labour has survived numerous scandals over the last 10 years, while taxing us at double-digit rates with single-digit returns. Perhaps it was only Blair that kept them going. Perhaps it is because of Cameron that the Tories are only now electable. Like Marciano v Ali, we shall never know whether Cameron could have beaten Blair. But whatever, perhaps I suffer from the Mr Maude syndrome depicted by Tamzin Lightwater.

carol scott

Don't compare Brown with Major. John Major had a small and ever decreasing majority and a Party badly split over Europe. He was still liked by an awful lot of people after he lost the election, it was his Party they had grown to hate, I lived in his constituency and a nicer man you couldn't hope to meet, very different to his TV personna. Not cut out to be a leader maybe but he remained personally popular and got thousands of letters saying not him but the Conservative Party. So Margaret Thatcher was respected if not liked , Major the reverse, not sure how Blair will be remembered but I am as sure as I can be that Gordon Brown will leave neither liked or respected and that is what he deserves.