Labour is fated to be led by Gordon Brown, but he can still be forced to share power

A fortnight ago, I was invited along to a dinner with John Reid in the private room of a London hotel. It sounded wonderfully conspiratorial, arranged at just a few hours’ notice at a time when speculation about the Labour party leadership was rife. I bounded in to find about a dozen other journalists and the most unwelcome guest of all: an overhead projector at the top of the table. We had been summoned to hear about the Home Office reorganisation he had announced that day.

All remarks that night were off the record, as is customary. But it would betray no confidences to say that Mr Reid rather disappointed those who had been hoping for a hint that he was about to knife Gordon Brown. His position in private seemed depressingly similar to his public proclamation that he will not say a thing about the leadership until Tony Blair quits. Yet now once again he is being looked to by those MPs who are increasingly desperate for a challenge to Mr Brown.

His task this time is apparently to put steel into the spine of David Miliband and back him as a leadership candidate. But should the 41-year-old Environment Secretary decide he is too young for a kamikaze mission, has Mr Reid now decided to run himself? Absolutely not, say his aides, he remains in a position of proud indecision. Even so, to the anyone-but-Brown camp, this talk of a challenge — any challenge — is too good not to be true.

The case for a leadership contest has grown even more compelling over the Easter recess. Polls show that Mr Brown is now blamed by most voters for the pensions crisis, with the over-50s (those most likely to vote) particularly resentful.