Brown Was Supposed to Go After Lisbon Was Secured

Should Gordon Brown cling on to power through a combination of unholy alliance and/or ballot fraud obscured by the 'hung parliament' narrative pushed now for weeks, we will see some spiteful  acts of retribution - spite being a large part of Brown's political signature.

But should Labour be forced to let go on Friday morning we are told in much of the media that Brown will go quickly, that it would be 'cruel' to him to be an Opposition leader, that there will be an immediate move to choose another.  Peter Mandelson is said to want avoidance of a divisive and contested electoral process and a rapid confirmation of a 'New' Labour  projectista; in short David Miliband.  Looked at purely objectively, Mandelson is right.  A smooth transition in both generation and continuance of policy objectives from the Party leadership will deliver  a relatively undamaged political force which will be quick to be ready to fight another day, a day that could arrive quite soon, if the unpopularity of the incoming administration resulting from inevitable austerities meets Governor King's informed expectations.

Unfortunately Brown's hanging onto office by his finger nails until the last is as damaging to his Party as it has been to our country.  The Labour party's infamous Rule Book of democratic centralist practice provides for different procedures on choosing a Leader depending on whether the Party is or is not in power.   In opposition the unavailability of the Leader triggers the Deputy-leader taking office as Leader while an election, with grotesquely rigged voting, is undertaken. (cf the death of John Smith and Margaret Beckett's short-lived leadership of the Party before she lost to Blair); so either Brown must stay on while a formal challenge and then an election takes place, or Harriet Harman will become acting Leader until the leadership election has taken place.  There is no other provision for choosing a caretaker leader when the Party is out of power.  Mandelson's smooth transition king-making is unachievable out of office.  And Ms Harman is going to be very well placed, in situ to run for the permanent Leadership, particularly if Mr Harman, with all that trade union connection, takes Birmingham Erdington (and if he doesn't who cares what the Labour party might be doing then).

So Brown's pig-headedness in refusing to step aside for Miliband once the Lisbon Treaty had been secured which, in view of   the economic meltdown he engineered could be the only reason for his remaining in Downing Street, has lost Labour this election and may well have cost Labour any electoral hope in decades.