Gordon Brown: 120 days and counting

What with Westmonster - and pretty much the rest of the politically aware world - thinking of heading down to the bookies and placing a serious bet on Gordon Brown not lasting the summer as PM, there's been very little to persuade us doing otherwise.

The Sunday Mirror has added to that list of ominous career-ending rumblings with an 'exclusive' revelation from Brown's allies: that he has 120 days to prove his worth as Labour leader. Otherwise? Otherwise he'll be the proud owner of both a P45 and a hastily-painted portrait to hang alongside that one of Tony Blair looking like an insomniac Dale Winton.

The reason for this 120 day deadline works around the upcoming Labour party conference in September. If Gord can make it to that point with the party even vaguely unified behind him, sources reckon, then there's a good chance he could be the figurehead squaring up against David Cameron in the next general election. And more than likely losing.

A close ally revealed:

''There is no realistic leadership challenge and Gordon will not cave in to calls for him to quit. But he will be in for a nightmare at party conference if we don't get the policies exactly right on issues like petrol prices and fuel bills by then. We've got 120 days to turn things around."

His attitude doesn't seem to be all too widely shared, however. Reports are rife - and have officially been denied - that legions of high-profile ministers already feel that enough is enough and Brown should step down from his exalted position.

Which means one exciting possibility: that - as well as a bitter upcoming leadership challenge - we may well see the Labour party descend into a tabloid-headline-grabbing civil war for the next couple of months.

Who says the summer months are slow news-wise?

Written by C J Davies on 26 May 2008 12:45 AM. Permalink