Government 'disintegrating beneath his very feet'
THIS BLOG WAS CLOSED ON POLLING DAY - AND ALL POST-0600 ENTRIES WERE REMOVED (to comply with election broadcast rules)
Yesterday this Blog observed that the left-wing press was deserting Gordon Brown -- and 24 hours later, following hard on the heels of the Independent, the country's most important left-wing daily, , has this morning .
In the grand scheme of things, hostile newspaper editorials (even from usually sympathetic newspapers) are the least Gordon Brown has to worry about. Far more important is the impression that the government is disintegrating beneath his very feet and the growing view that, post , the chances of a backbench revolt and/or a serious leadership challenge are growing by the day. And that's where the newspapers are important.
Labour MPs and activists read the Guardian and the and, by and large, care about what they say. The combined effect of the editorials will be to reinforce those who want Mr Brown to go and to push those who are wavering in that direction too. We still don't know if that is the majority mood in the party. But I sense it's getting very close to it.
I never thought I'd live to see a government in a more severe state of disintegration than ailing Tory government of the mid-1990s. But it's beginning to look as if the Brown government is in an even worse state. After all, despite all the sleaze, divisions and general lack of purpose, even the Major government did not suffer from a rush to the door by ministers in the wake of a Cabinet reshuffle (we are witnessing Westminster's first ever pre-shuffle).
Yet that is what is happening before our very eyes and the PM looks powerless in the wake of the exodus. The next 10 days look like being the most interesting, in party political terms, since challenged in the autumn of 1990. As then, so now: we are in uncharted territory.
Nobody knows what's going to happen -- not even the PM!
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