James Forsyth

Kevin Maguire was widely tipped to be Gordon Brown’s Alastair Campbell but in the end the Mirror man stayed at his paper rather than heading to Downing Street. His columns, though, have always been fairly supportive of the Brown government which is what makes his piece today—“Gordon Brown must make sweeping changes”—so interesting. Maguire wants Brown to dump a whole bunch of policies including the planned 2p increase in fuel duty, ID cards and 42 day detention.

Gordon Brown wants you to blame somebody—anybody—else for the rise in the price of fuel. So, this morning he takes to the pages of The Guardian for some OPEC-bashing hoping that aggrieved motorists will curse this cartel rather than Brown when they see how much it costs to fill their tank. Later today, Brown and Darling, who rumour suggests is rather fed up with his next door neighbour, will meet with oil industry chiefs in Aberdeen. As Michael Millar points out over on Trading Floor, nothing productive is likely to come out of this meeting. But Team Brown hopes that it will provide the public with someone else to blame for the pain at the pump. Back in the day, Brown’s transference tactics might have worked.

William Hill have just sent through their latest odds on Brown’s prospects. Brown is 6/4 to go before the next election 7 to 2 to leave this year 15/8 to be replaced in 2009 11/10 to go in 2010 The small odds on Brown going before the next election suggest that the punters are more bearish on Brown than the pundits. I suspect that, if you don’t mind your money being tied up for so long, the value bet might be on Brown going in 2009. If the party get absolutely slaughtered in the European and local elections on June 4th then Labour MPs might decide that, to save their own skins, they have to sacrifice their leader.

The Mirror and The Sun both devote their lead editorial to arguing against the planned rise in vehicle excise duty and the rising cost of fuel. The Mirror—which is the one reliably pro-Brown paper in Fleet Street—leader will cause particular concern among jittery Labour MPs. It warns that the “rebellion…has the potential to be more damaging than the row over the 10p tax rate.” It urges Brown to “act now, signal that a 2p rise in fuel duty will not go ahead and make clear he is listening on vehicle excise duty.” 42 days and the vehicle excise duty revolt will give us our first guide to how much Brown’s authority among his backbenchers has been diminished by the triple-whammy of bad election results.

Jon Cruddas, the Labour backbencher who came third but with the most first preference votes in last year’s deputy leadership contest and is tipped by many as a good outside bet to be the next Labour leader, has an interesting piece in The Independent this morning. He argues that the calls for an instant change of leader are misguided but contends that Labour can’t carry on with the same set of policies.  These are what Cruddas would like to see as the new set of dividing lines between Labour and the Tories: “Where the Tories would rely on market forces to bring down living costs, Labour can enforce fairer prices.