About the current crisis in government

Well I'm not sure actually that it is a crisis, as crises by definition should be sudden, unforeseen with some kind of immediate and severe impact on things in the short term. Take the economic crisis for example. Banks went under. People lost jobs. It was tangible. It was a crisis. People didn't see it coming. It was a shock to the system, like a decent crisis should be.

But the current crisis in government? That has been ongoing since the undemocratic appointment of Mr Brown as PM, following the long overdue departure of Mr Blair. There has been speculation and calls for the PM's beheading ever since, to the point of it becoming a bit boring. The Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee has been urging Labour to have a leadership contest for longer than I care to remember, and some sacrificial lambs in government have jumped ship along the way, crying out loud their disquiet about Mr Brown's leadership in their 15 seconds of coverage in the main news, soon forgotten about.

So now some more senior people have jumped ship (e.g. Smith, Blears, Purnell, Hutton). But the rebels have not been joined by the "presidential guards" as pointed out in the Guardian today. A revolt now is not a real threat to Mr Brown's premiership. By contrast, the next election will be. Polly, you have ask yourself, who in their right mind would want to take the Labour Party to the next general election? Gordon Brown, obviously, and the senior types are going to let him. Why would they want to be the leader for a few months only to lose the imminent election and get blamed for the defeat? Oh no, they're going to allow Mr Brown take the full hit. Alan Johnson, Toynbee's favourite leader-in-waiting, has emerged as the new Home Secretary in the current reshuffle.

My main problem is that it looks like we're going to have to live with a popular conservative administration for a while anyway, and that's not cricket.