The expenses scandal has delighted the Tories — it keeps Brown in power

James Forsyth

Wednesday, 4th November 2009

James Forsyth reviews the week in Politics

Much has changed since the failed June coup against Gordon Brown: the soft left has lost faith in him. If Jon Cruddas and the other Compass MPs had joined the rebellion, the Prime Minister would have been toppled. Instead they stayed on the sidelines. They stood aside thinking that the would-be plotters did not represent a change of direction. However, electoral reality is now catching up with them. One well-connected figure in this wing of the party says that the prospect of knocking on a door and having to explain why people should vote for five more years of Prime Minister Brown is ‘terrifying, chilling’. They know there is no answer to the Tories’ planned closing argument: do you want five more years of Brown?

As before, the Labour leadership issue distils into two questions: what mechanism would depose him, and who would replace him? The view is that one way to force Brown out would be for departing MPs to do one last service to the party and deliver enough names in the New Year to make Brown’s position untenable. But the problem is the potential candidates remain in come-and-get-me mode. Alan Johnson has shown no desire even to walk towards the mantle, let alone pick it up and run with it. Word is that Team Miliband is once again installing the metaphorical phone lines. But as was the case last time, he won’t wield the dagger himself. The cautious Miliband must be aware that if he won and Labour lost the next election then he would almost certainly be challenged for the leadership post-election by a couple of candidates, Balls and Cruddas.

The Conservatives, to a man, know that they need Brown to stay. His departure is the single biggest risk factor in the Tory game-plan. Glasses are raised to him in Westminster bars. He is called a ‘treasure’ and ‘our greatest asset’. Without Mr Brown the Tories would, as one shadow cabinet member puts it, ‘be back in hung parliament territory’. The Tories can only hope that Labour MPs remain too obsessed by their expenses to do anything about it.