Brown is not the problem

In September 2006, as Tony Blair was forced to bring forward his departure date by backbench rebellion, The Spectator predicted a Labour civil war. It was not clear when this conflict would erupt, only that its coming was inexorable. This week, battle commenced.

In the wake of disastrous local election results and the loss of London to Boris Johnson, Gordon Brown faces revolt on many fronts. In Scotland, Labour’s leader, Wendy Alexander, has called for a referendum on the future of the United Kingdom. In Westminster, Charles Clarke, the former Home Secretary, has demanded that the PM drop his plans to extend the pre-charge detention period for terror suspects to 42 days, and that Mr Brown ‘finish with dog whistle language, such as British jobs for British workers, which flatters some of the most chauvinistic and backward-looking parts of society’.

The Labour Left, with all the logic of lemmings, urges the PM to embrace pure socialism.