The sun may have been shining at the weekend (hence the complete lack of blogging!) but sp transfixed will he have been by the coverage in the weekend papers it’s unlikely Gordon Brown will have noticed; somewhere deep within the bowels of 10 Downing Street the fallen giant of Labour politics will have been rocking back and forth asking himself where it all went wrong.
What’s interesting about the coverage though is not so much what was said but rather the timing and volume of what was said. In the space of two days Gordon faced overt attack from John Prescott, Stephen Byers and Ivan Lewis, along with a much more damaging implicit attack from Cherie Blair. And then the coup de grâce, Frank Field the de facto leader of the disenfranchised back benches tells the BBC’s World Service that he would be "very surprised" if Brown was the leader of the Labour Party when the next election swings around.
In terms of what was said however it is Cherie Blair’s revelations that deserve the most attention. As ever though it’s important to put the statements in context. The knives are out for Gordon Brown, a leadership challenge is increasingly a question of when rather than if, key Blairites are on the prowl, and a crucial by-election is a mere ten days away. Into this less than delicate mix steps Cherie, a woman whose disdain for Brown is well known, with the ‘news’ that Tony is advising Brown on how to win the next election. The significance? Firstly Brown and the Brownites cannot deny the revelation (whether it’s true or not) because to do so would bring the full wrath of the Blairites down upon Brown’s ever disintegrating manse house. Secondly, and more importantly, the revelation acts as a reminder that Tony Blair was a winner and Brown is a loser, a reminder that Brown is in need of help and that, fundamentally, he is weak.
If Cherie’s statement was translated from New Labour to English it would read quite simply ‘Brown is going to destroy the Party, you will lose your seat; if you want to win you need a new leader‘.
In fact, Cherie’s statement reminds me a lot of something Miliband said recently - "We know what’s fatal - if we fail to defend the leader, if we lose sight of our core convictions, or we don’t follow through on what we have started."