Brown shouldn’t fear the stalking horses

It is a modern ritual that when a party political leader’s fortunes plummet – and Gordon Brown’s certainly fit that category – there is talk of a leadership contest and, specifically, of a “stalking horse” candidate.

Here’s an entertaining look in Slate at the origins of the phrase. But, for most of us, the words trigger memories of Sir Anthony Meyer’s challenge to Margaret Thatcher for the Tory leadership in 1989 – doomed in itself, but the key that turned the lock to her downfall a year later.

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Ross Clark

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The Conservative leadership rules in those days were sufficiently flexible to make such a challlenge meaningful, and enabled contenders to step into the second round of a contest. In the Labour context, talk of “stalking horses” is completely meaningless.

A prospective challenger has to secure a whopping 20 per cent of Labour MPs – namely 70 of the 352.