Bagehot
Midwinter madness
The old lessons of the latest push to get rid of Gordon Brown
Jan 7th 2010
Wednesday February 8th 2012
Advertisement
Most commented
- Tibetans and the Chinese state: No power to pacify
- Will the euro survive 2012 intact?
- Lexington: The classes drift apart
- Competition: Our forthcoming China blog
- Birtherism 2012: To the nation born
- Syria: Moscow rules
- Hong Kong and the mainland: Dogs and locusts
- Chinese college students: Making ting tong cool
- America in Afghanistan: Outta here
- Pollution in China: Man-made and visible from space
Over the past five days
Most recommended
- Pollution in China: Man-made and visible from space
- Facebook: A fistful of dollars
- Daily chart: Facebook by numbers
- China: The paradox of prosperity
- Alcohol: Possibly the best travel tip ever
- Riding India's railways: All aboard the Vivek Express
- JAS's cartoon: The week ahead
- Remembering Raoul Wallenberg: A necessary example of tolerance
- Fernando Henrique Cardoso on Brazil's future: More personal security, less inequality
- Pakistan's security state: Reading the Taliban
Over the past seven days
Advertisement
Products & events
Stay informed today and every day
Subscribe to The Economist's free e-mail newsletters and alerts.
Subscribe to The Economist's latest article postings on Twitter
See a selection of The Economist's articles, events, topical videos and debates on Facebook.
Classified ads
Readers' comments
Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.
Sort:
If Labour's hopes of closing the gap with the Tories have been extinguished by this latest farce and they are seen as certain losers it could lead to a late surge in support to the LibDems,particularly if Nick Clegg performs well in the TV debates.
Wanted: new leader to lead the Labour Party to defeat in a general election. Who was likely to repond to that call?
It's just mad.
I think Labour seems to have decided to lose.
Just as Brown has a quite good run at PMQ's this comes along. Yes it was ineptly handled by a couple of yesterday's (wo)men but the grudging support from the Cabinet probably said far more.
Even as the Tories stumbled they have been offered a gilt edged election boost. If the Cabinet are at best slow to offer their support, what faith should the rest of the country have in Gordon Brown?
Of course Gordon Brown was not much of a conspirator himself - but perhaps that was what you meant?!
What a tragedy? Labour can't even get a decent coup organised let alone govern. Spending cuts and reforms are needed to make Britain competitive again, the share of Govt activity as a percentage of GDP needs to be brought down to circa 30%. It is time to review New Labour under the Tories.
whoever wins should stop molly coddling the public and get on with the job. Boy George are you up to it?
Labour are highly unlikely to win with Gordon Brown as prime minister, it would make sense for him to step down.
One can only assume that, on balance, the Labour Party believes that Gordon Brown is the man to lead them into the next election.
If that is based on the calculation that its goes to be bad and that he'll go if Labour are beaten it may just be that no one fancies puliing the Labour car out of the snowdrift (sorry , could not resist it..) at this stage. Better to get a thumping under Brown and let the electorate do the dirty work, get cameron to take over and administer the medicine that Labour won't - and hope that Labour get in again when the electorate realise how bad it is and how harsh the cuts now need to be - and punish the incumbant
No edifying, but nifty party politics ?
Two disgruntled ex-cabinet ministers do not a party "hopelessly beset by in-fighting" make.
Any chance of a little less bias and a little more objectivity?