Lining up to give Brown a kicking

As Three Line Whip points out, yet another Labour figure has joined the long, long queue to give Gordon Brown a kicking.  This time it's the Labour MP Ken Purchase, who is less-than-kind about the Government in an ePolitix interview.  Here's what he has to say about Brown's election climbdown:

“

"I thought that was a serious mistake ... The actual event itself, I think was a bit overplayed by the media but it has had this lasting effect of branding Gordon a ditherer.

It was a mistake and I thought that older and wiser counsel should have prevailed much earlier - it should have been stopped much, much earlier."

"Older and wiser counsel"?  That's not a dig at Ed Ball, is it?  He follows it up with this:

“

"These people that Gordon has surrounded himself by are amazingly able but in the end, there is no substitute for experience and you can't blame people for being young.

But there were plenty of other people about who let Gordon down by not fighting their way into that conversation, that discussion, that proposal - maybe some more experienced people should have elbowed their way to the frontline and said to Gordon that it was not a good idea."

And rounds things off with a bit of backhanded flattery:

“

"I think that Gordon Brown could be a very, very great prime minister but he has got an awful hole to get out of now."

It's becoming quite astonishing how Downing Street can't keep a lid on any of this.  With things as they are, Team Brown should be going into overdrive to get the rank-and-file on side.  Their failure to do so is a symptom of a disintegrating operation.  And of just how fed up the Labour crowd is.