Matthew Dancona

The death of John MacDougall, Labour MP for Glenrothes since 2001, will trigger yet another nightmare for Gordon Brown. No other word will do. Glenrothes in Fife is on the PM’s very doorstep and – after Glasgow East – looks distinctly vulnerable. In the 2005 general election, Mr MacDougall polled 19,395 votes, well ahead of the SNP’s John Beare on 8,731. But Labour’s majority of 10,664 accounted for only 28.5 per cent of the vote. In Glasgow East, Labour’s 2005 majority was larger in absolute terms – 13,507 – but accounted for more than 43 per cent of the turnout. In other words, Glenrothes looks like an even juicier target for the SNP: if Alex Salmond’s party could win in Glasgow East, this should be, frankly, a doddle.

The Daily Telegraph story about David Miliband offering Number 11 to Alan Milburn rings true for a number of reasons: not least that Milburn has also been in to see Gordon Brown about a possible return to Government. At a time when Labour is desperately in need of combative talent in its front row, the absence of Mr Milburn is – as he would say – “plain daft”. Like Fraser, I admire AM and his restless energy enormously. It is a shame that he has not felt comfortable simply staying in Government or, better still, defecting to the Tories. But the Brownites will be thrilled by this story, for reasons I discuss in tomorrow’s magazine.

This is the fourth in our series of posts looking at where it all went wrong for Gordon Brown.  The first, second and third are here, here and here, respectively. When did it all go wrong for Gordon? Before he even began, I now think: on the evening of 16 May, 2007, to be precise. It was then that Brown finally secured the backing of 308 Labour MPs – accounts differ as to whether it was Andrew Mackinlay or Tony Wright who pushed him over the finishing line – thus ensuring that he could not be beaten in a leadership contest. Mr Brown was not to become Prime Minister until June 27, but his coronation was ensured that night.

In her only print interview, Jacqui Smith tells Matthew d’Ancona that her proposal for the detention of terror suspects does not undermine Magna Carta, that she is ‘frustrated’ by Lord Goldsmith, and that the ‘West Midlands housewife’ is a better judge of the threat than MPs In a government stuffed with malfunctioning robots, nervous wrecks and preening Fauntleroys, Jacqui Smith shows every sign of being a fully paid-up member of the human race. Which, as it happens, is the first lucky break Gordon Brown has had in months. It is a slight exaggeration to say that the Home Secretary holds her boss’s future in her hands — but only slight.

As John Prescott is fond of saying, the plates are moving. Two left-of-centre commentators today turn their attention to Labour’s predicament in ways that only emphasise its depth. Steve Richards – always essential reading – sets out the case for electoral reform and freely admits that only parties that are desperate take this issue seriously. Blair, he reveals, once told him that it would be “quixotic” to embrace PR or another variant shortly after winning a landslide by first-past-the-post. I suspect that Steve is right and that a lot of subterranean discussions are going on between Labour and the Lib Dems on this issue.

Politics is moving at an astonishing pace. Frank Field has upped the ante with his extraordinary remarks on the BBC World Service – that Gordon will not lead Labour into the next election, and that he should ask his loved ones when would be best to leave. Every time the PM raises his head above the parapet he is walloped by another memoir or hit by shrapnel from a backbench rebellion, actual or threatened. It will be hard to top Alan Johnson’s response on the Today programme. Evan Davis asked him about the turmoil and the Health Secretary actually said: “You’re breaking up.” Superb.

Charles Clarke, as predicted earlier, has been distributing his article in the new Progress magazine. It is strong stuff: "First, we have to change the conduct of our politics. We should discard the techniques of ‘triangulation’, and ‘dividing lines’ with the Conservatives, which lead to the not entirely unjustified charge that we simply follow proposals from the Conservatives or the right-wing media, to minimise differences and remove lines of attack against us. We should finish with ‘dog whistle’ language, such as ‘British jobs for British workers’, which flatter some of the most chauvinistic and backward-looking parts of British society.