Labour’s factions

Talk about how to depose Gordon Brown is widespread in Labour circles, but for journalists it is hard to know how to convey it. There is no real news story, insofar as there has been no rebels’ meeting (that we know about) but the whispers have reached such volume that it has become an event in itself. In my political column for the magazine today, I lay out the three camps.

The Insurgents: This includes but is not limited to Blairites. They want to use the recess to dump him, arguing that the longer he stays the more damage Labour will sustain and the larger the Tory majority will be. There may not be a candidate to win the next election, they say, but decisions made now could make the difference between a one-term and two-term Cameron government because Brown is leading Labour to that kind of defeat

The One-Last-Chancers: They believe the recess will provide a cooling off period – after all, wasn’t it just last summer that magazines like The Spectator had on their front cover a picture of David Cameron with his head in the noose? So let’s see how the summer goes. Perhaps as we come closer to the election, the media will get tired kicking Brown and start asking awkward questions of Cameron. And last summer brought three out-of-the-blue events that Brown was regarded to have dealt with well: the floods, the foot-and-mouth outbreak and the terrorist incidents. So let’s wait until the conference, give him the chance to prove himself, and then decide.

The Micawberists: They want to keep Gordon Brown in the hope that something will turn up. They have no idea what, but they hate the idea of a “divisive” leadership challenge and believe there is no one manifestly better than Brown. Why should the party tear itself up, and do Cameron’s work for him? It should be remembered here that Labour does not have the killer instinct that Conservatives do and so are cursed by the Labour mentality of sticking to a five-year plan even if it is manifestly the wrong one.

I spoke to one friend of David Miliband who lamented that the Foreign Secretary is now boring all his friends with the same phrase (of Heseltine’s) – that he who wields the dagger never wears the crown. So who will wield the dagger? On this question Gordon Brown’s future – and that of the Labour party – now rests.