James Forsyth

I have a sneaking feeling that the cabinet ministers Gordon Brown should be most worried about are Douglas Alexander and Des Browne. Both are former Brown loyalists who have been shabbily treated by their boss. If either of them turned on the PM, it would prove that this is not a Blairite plot or a Southern rebellion but a movement of those who have come to realise that Brown is simply not up to the job.  Douglas Alexander has been frozen out by Brown, made to carry the can for the election that never was.

There was a fascinating debate tonight, sponsored by the Evening Standard, about whether or not New Labour is doomed for defeat. James Purnell had drawn the short straw of being the Labour politician on the panel and in the circumstances he turned in a fine performance. But there were a couple of moments that caused the Kremlinologists in the room to draw breath. First he announced that the reason child poverty is not about to being eliminated is not, as the Tories argue, because big state solutions don’t work but because the money earmarked in recent Budgets for the task has been insufficient. Now, when you consider who has been Chancellor and then First Lord of the Treasury during this time one gets the impression that the Blairite Purnell was criticising Brown from the left.

Watching David Miliband surrender all he gained over the summer, Labour rebels wound but not oust Brown and the Lib Dems having their conference overshadowed by Labour’s troubles it would be understandable if the Tories felt things were going just fine. But a close reading of today’s papers should jolt the Tories out of any sense of complacency and encourage those Labour MPs who are sitting on the fence to join in the rebellion. There are three stories in today’s paper that the Labour attack machine would have used to hammer the Tories back in the day. First, and most seriously, there is The Sunday Times’ investigation into Lord Ashcroft’s funding of the Tories. It should be stressed that it is entirely legal.

Siobhain McDonagh has become the first person to quit their payroll job in an attempt to force a leadership contest. If others are brave enough to follow her example, then the game really will be afoot. The Progress article by a dozen Blairite MPs which is scathingly critical of where and how Labour is being led is also a clear statement of intent. What should worry the Brownites about it though, is that some names are noticeable by their absence; suggesting that there might be a plan for a programme of rolling criticism of Brown in the run up to conference. But as long as the campaign to force Brown out can be depicted as some kind of Blairite conspiracy then Brown is relatively safe.

If you want to know how a post-Brown Labour party might take on the Tories, I’d thoroughly recommend the Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rutherford edited Is the future conservative? It is one of the first things from the left that I have read that takes the Cameron Tories seriously and maps out how the left can fight back. Here’s Cruddas and Rutherford’s rallying cry to the left: The future does not belong to the Conservative Party. Right now it belongs to a social democracy that is willing to bring liberal free market capitalism and corporate power back under control. The debate is about how we secure this post neoliberal politics. The left needs to recover its ethical socialism and commitment to equality.

Anne McElvoy’s piece in the Standard today on the Cameron-Osborne relationship makes the following claim: “As their differences are in the open, they do not fester.” It is tempting to agree that sunshine is the best disinfectant. But I wonder how the press would have reacted to Osborne publicly drawing distinctions with Cameron and taking a thinly-veiled slap at Cameron’s jejune approach to Iraq as he did in The Guardian on Monday, if the Tories were not close to twenty points ahead in the polls?   PS Those interested in the Cameron-Osborne relationship should make sure to read Tamzin tomorrow.

The news that Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind Barack Obama has raced round the internets. If truth be told, Brown hasn’t endorsed Obama or done anything like that. Rather, a clumsily written article has implied that he has by singling out Obama for praise and not mentioning McCain. The McCain campaign’s response to these reports is scathing. In a post on the McCain report entitled “The Coveted Gordon Brown Endorsement” it points out that Obama no longer advocates the policy that Brown praised him for. Now, really this is a storm in a tea-cup.