Authority? What authority?

Brown’s dwindling authority has become the issue du jour.  Despite what Downing Street is saying, the matter isn’t even up for question.  After the bizarre YouTube expenses fiasco, and the defeat over Gurkha settlement rights, Brown has pretty much lost any meaningful control over his party.  And, as if to ram the point home, there’s a series of remarkable quotes from “two senior Cabinet ministers” in today’s Telegraph.  One raises the spectre of the Major government:

“We can still turn this round, but Gordon is not listening. He is lashing out and reacting to headlines. It’s all so reminiscent of the last months of John Major.

If we don’t get our act together — and that means Gordon needs some better advice — we could go down to a defeat every bit as big as, if not bigger than, the Tories in 1997.