Can Brown make it through December?

James

We are now half way through a year long election campaign. Can our constitution do nothing about this? We have no government, just a party seeking re-election. The fact that we may have another 'coronation' seems to offend nobody's democratic sensibilities.
I DEMAND A CHANCE TO VOTE ON THE NEXT PRIME MINISTER. THIS IS NOT ZIMBABWE

Diogenes

Surely no sane electorate (if we have one) is going to attach much credence to a leadership/position change which finally gets achieved five months before an election?

Senor Frizby

That last line will server the history books but only by reference of an asterix, above which, the truth of his damaging tenure holding the reigns of power will be in bold print.

What does it say of blunkett?

TrevorsDen

Would a change in leadership acknowledge the mistakes that had led up to it?
No - I thought not, so I do not see the public being fooled.

Will the right allow the left to foist its own candidate?

Do I care?

Would a Cabinet Minister really predict in public that Brown will leave? New year? February? An election period and then we are into April and the election proper. Not much time and lets not forget there is a war on.

Ricky

There are only three serious potential candidates - Ed Milibland (supported by the Unions and New Lab), James Purnell (supported by the Straw Men and orchestrated behind the scenes by Blair & Mandelson)) and Hattie (supported by Dromey, the sisterhood and the remnants of the tired, old town hall guardianistas.

There will be no serious challenge. Any candidate is doomed at the next Election and will face their professional career in opposition.

The jostling will only truly begin after the Election and the Labour Party - currently in seizure - will agonise over the post-morten for several decades.

Many of the senior players are already planning their exit and looking forward to life in the quango comfort zone or to spending their twilight years paying court to that notorious shapeshifter - President Elect Blair, Holy Tony Roman Emperor in Waiting (EU Gravy Train Inc).

you there

I have been reading blogs like this for a year or more. Cannot these guys get it (the labour party): gordon is going to lose big time. There is not a lot left to say.

Somewhere in the labour party machine is someone monitoring the blogs. How far up the chain does it go? If they do not tell the upper tier the I would call it a dereliction of duty.

Austin Barry

Labour is dead. Its putrefying corpse though will not be buried until next summer. The worms, Balls, Straw, the Milipedes et al, wriggle on its rancid residue. In the Great Plague they used quicklime to speed putrefication. We have only contempt. It is not enough.

Derek

James

I am reading in the Washington Times that tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Washington DC against big government yesterday. One of the cries was "Enough, enough!". I have watched in amazement from afar as the "British street" has stayed indoors during our own crisis. With this example now set by the Americans, can this passivity continue? I fear though that it will only be when the opposition has been elected that we will see demonstrations against the government...

Victor Southern

I feel dreadful about this. I realise that it is imperative that we get rid of Labour whilst anything of our nation is still salvageable.

Meanwhile I watch with awful fascination the death throes of the Labour party and enjoy them so thoroughly.

But that is allowing my personal plaesure to come before the benefit of my country so I must wish for an end to it all within weeks. Next April will be disastrously late. They commit daily outrages and heinous blunders and April or May will give them time for hundreds more such.

J H Holloway

The 'failing eyesight' line would be the key sign that Brown is planning retreat.

It may be that he will declare the recession over in the New Year and claim that he - in the face of Tory opposition - was the man who save the country and the banks.

Making his escape would also fit neatly with his record in avoiding full-scale confrontation. Wpuld Brown voluntarily walk into the next election to lead Labour into annihilation?

Could he really cope with being held responsible for destroying his beloved party?

It sounds more and more possible that he'll leg it once the recession is technically over.

Sarah

@you there. I guess it is feared that even a shiny new PM will only decrease the conservatives' margin of victory rather than turn things round completely, thus taking the gloss off Ed Milliband or whoever and making it even harder to pick up the pieces in time for the *next* election

Silent Hunter

Austin Barry:

"..In the Great Plague they used quicklime to speed putrefication. We have only contempt. It is not enough...."

That's a great line.

Well said.

I too, feel like Victor - I'm tempted to say Oh God no, please keep him in place until the GE because it will guarantee the complete destruction of the Labour Party, but then again, I think of all the damage Labour are doing to our country.

Who knows?

Perhaps he will take one too many of his horse pills and do us all a favour.

BigAl

A return to the Labour party of old, with the Unions and government together deciding socialist policies for the country fills me with dread. Just like it did in the seventies.

Punitive taxes on the rich will lead to a mass exodus of the very people who currently pay the vast majority of income tax.

Messing around with tax relief on pensions messes up small businesses and the self employed. It is interesting to see how the Union bosses want to see this cut but have no desire for pension cuts on public sector workers or cuts in any aspect of public services.

At least we can see that tractor production continues to rise year on year...........

Liz Brown

Ed Milliband makes me feel quite nauseous...........(but then do do the rest of them)

EC

Not long now lads. The date of the Irish referendum is Friday 2nd of October.

If the Irish vote YES then we ALL stand a good chance of getting Tony Blair back as EU President.

If the Irish vote NO they we stand a good chance of seeing a suntanned, reinvigorated Tony stride back into No.10 to relieve an ailing Gordon Brown and to save the nation.

Either way the second coming is nigh!

Do all enjoy your Sunday lunch.

Frank P

I think we should stop worrying about Brown and pay attention to what's happening across The Pond. We've been rapaciously and thoroughly Marxed already. The last hope for Western Civilisation rests in the US and it is now also in dire jeopardy.
Mark Steyn, in his inimitable way cuts to the chase:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/health-obama-government-2562126-care-president

Beck may be a bit frenetic and kooky, but he's the only one who is talking sense at the moment. Seems millions over there agree with him, but not this magazine apparently (except brave Mel).

Brown is not the problem. He is indeed politically brown bread. Cameron has his head so far up Obama's ass - he's the problem as he stands a chance of becoming the next tenant of No.10.

john miller

James, we never have had a Labour Government, we always have had a party seeking re-election. And if you look at it like that, it's hardly surprising that a party concentrating solely on re-election has succeeded in that narrow aim.

Shame really that they have screwed everything else, but then that is what Labour parties always do.

But they won't have any choice about finding a leader next Spring, because Brown won't stay around after then.

Even if it needs an Ernie Saunders or Ken Dodd type illness (fatal when needed but miraculously cured after the crisis) Brown will be out of Downing Street long before the ballot papers are printed.

Can anyone seriously imagine the gutless wonder fighting an election?

JONNY

Think of it.
Alan Johnson could make history as an entry in the Guiness Book of Records.
The shortest serving PM in the history of insignifcant PMs.(Just a couple of months).
Couldn't happen to a more faceless wonderboy.
Though it might help him draw a nice fat pension.

teledu

Mandelson & co. will happily sell Brown down the river and do nothing to dissuade leadership challenges AFTER the Irish re-referndum has tied us into the Lisbon constitution.
The EU project comes first. Not democracy, not integrity, not honesty, not loyalty to one's country. The EU project comes first. When we all grasp that, we may come to realise what a disastrous, treacherous bunch of fourth-rate politicians we have at Westminster (and much the same can be said of most journalists and the BBC). politsnake-oil

THX1138

Thanks EC

Just got back from a fab time festivaling in Dorset, great bands, organic falafels, a couple of hash flapjacks and super weather.

If bands can patch up their differences and reform why not former leaders and political parties?... After a perfect weekend I can drift off nicely dreaming of the TB reunion tour, it would be sell out of that I'm sure.

To quote Joni Mitchell:

"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till its gone"

Blue.Beat

I have heard lots of rumours about whether there will even be an election next year.
1.Brown will call it off because we are at war(he can do that)
2.The Irish vote yes on the treaty, that gets ratified,we are then part of Europe and EU elections are in FIVE YEARS TIME.
3.Brown will throw a sickie so we don't get the satisfaction of booting the moron out.
Any other twilight zone theories welcome.

the pro from dover

You forget that no-one in Labour wants the job. Look at recent history in the Tory party after their long period in power.
Hague, Duncan-Smith, 'Something-of-the-night', maybe there were others I can't remember. Labour is lost. I have a funny feeling Mandy might chance it, just to say he was PM once (for 6 months).
That would be a Xmas coup then.

the Pro from Dover

Actually, thought about what I wrote. Brown won't hand over, he will agree to be off sick til next June, and give Mandy the reins rather than the 'Deputy Leader'.