A face-saving exit for Brown?

Few commentators are as well plugged into the Brown circle as Jackie Ashley which makes her column this morning absorbing reading. Ashley floats the idea that Brown might quit after the G20 summit in April to become head of a new international financial regulatory body. Ashley admits that the story sounds implausible but she says that “it comes from quite close to the inner core.”

Leaving aside the fact that putting Brown in charge of this body would be rather like putting the head of the West Indies Cricket Board in charge of all pitch preparation for international cricket, it seems highly implausible that Brown, who has waited so long for the chance to be PM, would leave voluntarily. But Ashley writes that the argument goes like this, “he isn’t stupid. He reads the polls. He knows he faces a catastrophic defeat. Now it’s only a matter of when. If there is a lifeboat – jump.”