Labour’s Toast: Or Why Gordon Brown Will Never Win An Election

A delicious column by Rachel Sylvester in today’s Telegraph. Some choice highlights:

There is a “sulphurous mood” on the Labour benches. Disillusioned Left-wingers, who campaigned for Mr Brown to become leader, are joining forces with triumphant Blairites who say: “I told you so.” Even Tony Lloyd, the chairman of the PLP, warned yesterday that the Government needed to “clarify what it’s there for”. Ministers are losing the habit of discipline too. Last week, Ivan Lewis, a health minister, warned that Labour was “losing touch” with hard-working families, then Gerry Sutcliffe, the licensing minister, attacked the tax rises on booze. Behind the scenes, things are even worse. With no clear direction from above, Cabinet ministers are at each other’s throats. I am reliably informed that, after one recent Cabinet meeting, Jack Straw threatened to punch Ed Balls during a row about who was responsible for youth crime. The Justice Secretary came back to his department fuming that he had never been spoken to so rudely by a colleague in public and that he was not going to put up with it.