Skipper

The columnist most closely associated with Labour's inner circles is often reckoned to be Jackie Ashley and so her column today makes interesting reading. Leading figures have leapt to Gordon's defence, including John Prescott(surprisingly articulate on Andrew Marr), David 'Gordon's the best man' Miliband(and p.s. 'I'm not standing') plus Alan Johnson 'oh no, I wouldn't stand- not yet anyway' Johnson. But Jack Straw has been very silent recently and so have the ladies in the Cabinet. Ashley tells us that:

Behind the scenes, on both sides of the party, there are serious discussions going on about how to remove the prime minister. If the tumbrels are not actually rolling, then the wheels are being greased and the details of political assassination are being knowledgably discussed.

Both wings of New Labour- the Progress and Compass factions- have been negotiating a new 'policy agenda' plus a candidate to take over from Brown 'later this year'. It seems the former has been agreed- always the easy part given New Labour's lightness on ideoloogy- but the latter creates problems. Ashley expects a swift turn back to 'core Labour values' but is less helpful on who is likely to emerge as Labour's putative Saviour. She mentions Cruddas and Clarke as people who might be given more prominence to speak for the party on the Today programme but as part of a reshuffle, not a contest.

The key options still lie with the incumbent Labour leader. He can buy off potential rivals with rewards and scare the party with the horrors of firstly removing him and secondly selecting his successor. Ashley wonders if Gordon can find within and project the relaxed, witty, urbane version of himself his friends know so well. She concludes, drawing on the example of Boris Johnson- she underestimated 'the importance of style and swagger, certainly hunmour'. Finally she reckons front-runner David Miliband should 'set out his stall, along with Straw, Johnson and Balls, Brown's favoured successor'. Of these, I fear that on the style/swagger/humour criteria, Miliband, Balls and Straw score poorly(with Balls scoring zero) leaving Johnson as our best bet. I suspect this frothy talk will eventually fade away and doubt any change of helmsman will happen in the end.

Poor Gordon looks as exhausted and miserable as Macbeth rubbing his eyes as 'Great Birnam Wood' appears to march to 'high Dunsinane Hill'. Problem is for the metaphor to acquire a proper fit, there has to be a Macduff, or, to employ a closer one, like Martin Kettle, a 'Geoffrey Howe'. As he points out, getting rid of Gordon via the established machinery would be protracted and so bloody as to be counter-productive. Better by far would be for him to stand down by consent. To effect this it would be necessary for senior colleagues, i.e. members of his Cabinet to do the deed:

The key ministers in any such process are those in the middle who have managed to steer clear of the Blair-Brown polarisation. If some or all of Alistair Darling, Jack Straw, Alan Johnson, Des Browne and Geoff Hoon were to call on him to step down, it would be hard for Brown to resist. It would be harder still if these ministers made clear they would resign if he did not. But who is going to be Labour's Geoffrey Howe?

The most credible assassins- Miliband, Johnson- may decide they can survive a spell in Opposition and still have a crack at the top job. Hmmm. Depends on how long Labour is likely to be in the wilderness. The likes of poor old Gerald Kaufman saw their chances of senior office wither on the vine during 18 years. My feeling is an older, maybe 'greybeard' figure might step up to the plate and seek a short spell in the top job to turn things around. Straw? Ambitious enough but would he shaft Gordon? My pick would be that tough old warhorse who has always heartily disliked Brown, Charles Clarke. I just wonder if the next thing we see is a reshuffle giving office to every conceivable rival to draw their potential sting. Don't rule it out.

Returning from a rather damp visit to the centre of Western European culture, I find Crewe, which is anything but, at the centre of political interest. Yet another disaster for Labour, but in what particular ways?

1. The massive swing will increase pressure on Brown to go before the election. I note that Jenni Russell, a perfectly sensible Guardian journalist, was calling for him to go as soon as posible only yesterday. Expect the chorus to rise in intensity.

2. More old friends will fall by the wayside. I note that Charlie Falconer, admittedly in outer darkness since last June, shafted the Constitutional Renewal Bill and other of Gordon's works yesterday in the FT. I also note blogger Mike Ion, suggested Alan Milburn might be prepared to run against Gordon before the next election. Expect much more of same.

3. More pressure will focus on Labour's preparedness for an election. I note today that Labour is very heavily in debt, compared to the Tories' buoyant finances, and that the workers party will have to rely on those politically embarrassing unions to fund them for the next election.

4. The 'toff-attack' ploy used by Labour in the by-election bombed pathetically. I suspect it was not the reason why the vote was lost but it certainly did not help. If, as we are told, it was a dry run for how to take on Cameron in the election, Labour planners will be gloomily contemplating their drawing boards this morning.

5. The reason why Labour lost, I fear to say, is that voters have now had enough. We have been inching our way towards the Major analogy for months now: Crewe indicates that it has at last fully arrived. Once this stage has been reached, I suspect it means the end of Brown's hopes for a second term. Nick Robinson this morning noted that no prime minister has ever come back to win after suffering such a sustained collapse in personal standing.

Does this mean Labour will ose the next election? One would be a fool to say that it looks like anything else at the present stage. Gordon's role is akin to a Shakespearean tragedy. All that ambition, all that plotting, all that desperate, angry energy to displace Blair and seize the crown, and he's ended up with a fag-end premiership, apparently ending in tired failure after less than a year. All the doors have been closing; I think he has only until the autumn conference to turn it around.

I'm away for a few days in Florence so no blogging for a spell. I'll be ruminating, the while, on the claim by Cherie Blair that not only is she a socialist- which I can believe- but that Tony is too.

I remember interviewing Joe Haines, Wilson's fiercely partisan former press secretary in April 1986. Thatcher had just announced she would not be going ahead with the Shops Bill, allowing shops to open on a Sunday; there had been a huge groundswell of opposition from her own party on the grounds that it would diminish family life and reduce church congregations. Haines curled his lip in contempt and said 'This government is so weak, it's running up the white flag even before the battle has started.'

Well, Thatcher was there another four years and it took until 1994 before shops could open on Sundays. But his phrase occurred to me when I read today's headlines regarding the 42 Day Detention issue. Just as every day right now, seems to deliver something bad, this registers yet another new low in Brown's brief premiership. We learn that Geoff Hoon, by trade a lawyer, is putting together a package whereby the bill can be passed in an emasculated form. It could be that thre provision will only be activated in 'exceptional' circumstances, defined in terms so wide that any rebel would accept them.

So we are left with the most absurd of farces. Despite the disaster of the 90 Day Detention attempt in 2005, this 42 Day ruse was also designed to bolster a struggling government through appearing tough on terrorism. After arousing the fury of the civil liberties lobby his own backbench rebels and those who wish to keep on good terms with the British Muslim community, Brown insisted he would press ahead as sometimes it is the correct thing 'to lose and be right'. After caving in to his critics on the 10p tax band, he is now caving in on his 42 Days proposal. Maggie quickly reasserterd her authority after the Shops Bill debacle and ruled until November 1990; I don't see Gordon surviving anywhere near the same length of time. Frank Field might even be right regarding Brown not being leader come the 2010 election.

Jonathan Freedland yesterday expressed astonishment at how Labour spinners are seeking to interpret defeat as victory; for example claiming Boris's win as the expression of New Labour's success in reducing class resntment. But likely to bring more comfort to Gordon's beleagured psyche, is the piece by Bagehot in the Economist(yes, I know, I 've nicked their picture). He argues:

1. Wheras Tories in the 80s merely dismissed poverty as the fault of the poor and the price society paid for overall economic success, Cameron has focused on the 10p tax issue in the Crewe byelection. It is New Labour's success in changing the political weather which has caused this.

2. On the NHS Labour has 'entrenched a consensus in favour of a universal, taxpayer funded heatlh service.'

3. On diversity and tolerance Labour has hauled the Conservatives into the 21st century on matters such a homosexuality and the promotion of female and ethnic candidates.

4. Like his political hero, Tony Blair, Cameron has learned to 'emote, to act, to do politics in his shirtsleeves'. [he columnist adds 'One of Mr Brown's problems is he can't, not really'.]

Bagehot quotes a senior Tory who says 'The next election will be won by whoever is most New Labour' So, that settles it, Labour have won hands down over the last decade. The problem is, why doesn't it feel at all like it as the next decade of their rule gets under way. Oh, perhaps I shouldn't mention it, but Freedland also suggested in the article linked above, that it would be better for Labour to lose in 2010, than win another term and then be wiped out for a generation in 2014-5.

As a political blogger for the past three years, I am, unsurprisingly, a warm advocate of the political blogospere. I'm aware that some newspaper columnists might find this a bit threatening also, but the assault recently mounted by the leading blogger Guido Fawkes(in reality Paul Staines)seems way over the top:

When the great and the good assembled at the RSA last Wednesday... to bemoan their diminished status, they drew the battle-lines for a battle that should be joined and won for the blogosphere. The Commentariat desperately want to maintain their monopoly role as media gate-keepers, as the sub-edited filters of democracy and the monopoly producers of public commentary. Guido has said this before; in an age of near costless technological disintermediation "the news" is no longer what they say it is, we can make the news ourselves, unfiltered by the metropolitan media elite.

He went on to suggest Polly Toynbee was too vain or sensitive to read the critical online comments on her articles, even though many only read her to see her 'torn to shreds' by these very comments. Janet Daley was also singled out as the first member of this dated phalanx for critical attention. He promises to make a regular feature of taking columnists to task, revealing, with the help of other bloggers, he hopes, the triviality of the Commentariat's contributions to the political debate. Mmmm.

I'd make a number of observations on this:

1. We all have our own opinions on columnists. For example, I don't like Janet Daley or Simon Heffer much because they write for the rightwing press and I tend to dislike their views. Not so much their fault-they are not 'useless'- as a simple difference of opinion. I happen to like Polly Toynbee as someone who writes the the best researched articles on the left of centre and who is genuinely insightful of society and politics. It might be significant that even David Cameron thinks highly of her.

2. The best members of the commentariat study the political game very closely and can tell us a great deal about it. The likes of Andrew Rawnsley and Patrick Wintour move constantly in political circles and are very well informed as to what is happening behind the scenes, as the former's publications prove. Without their input we would lose a great deal and be much more ignorant of what is going on. They write foir the big papers and receive big salaries because they are mostly really good at their jobs.

3. Some columnists seem to be upset by critical comments. Maybe they shouldn't be, but I can understand their feelings. There is no real excuse for gratuitous rudeness or ad hominem attacks which ignore the argument. And we do have perhaps a little too much of that in the blogospere.

4. Does the political blogospere offer an adequate replacement for the commentariat? I doubt it very much. People like Guido often deal in superficial gossip, seldom offering real insights into the political scene. Furthermore, we bloggers are essentially one man bands, we lack the resources of the press or broadcasting or even most academic research programmes into our politics. Certainly the top bloggers-Dale, Guido, Montgomerie- are widely read but I suspect more for the jokes and the the personal attacks than the scant news or revealing apercus contained in their online columns. I should say that I read them regularly too, but for entertainment rather than illumination.

5. I often read the comments on these top blogs and find them often to be mindless cheerleading stuff, left by rightwing hooray henrys when they are not cliquey exchanges between people who seem to be old and rivalrous mates.

So, I'm sorry, I think much of the commentariat comprises good writing by seasoned obervers who help educate us after the manner of a mature democracy. Blogging has added a new dimension to political communication but it is still embryonic and nowhere near a substitute for what Guido attacks. People like the late Louis Heron, Peter Jenkins and Hugo Young made substantial contributions to the national debate and the likes of Rawnsley, Parris, Aaronovitch, Riddell, Simon Jenkins and Anatole Kaletsky to mention only a few, do something similar in the present day. Guido might have been annoyed at being attacked at that meeting but, I fear, it is he who takes himself too seriously and has come up with an over-reaction.