Martin Bright and Jackie Ashley are two of the most astute and influential commentators on the left. So I was particularly struck by how bearish about Brown’s prospects they both are; it is a sign of the times that the fact that Ashley does not totally rule out the possibility that Brown might recover is considered news.
.Here’s how Bright ends his typically excellent politics column in this week’s New Statesman:
While Ashley in her column about how Brown started to fight back today, concludes thus:“in the present atmosphere of seemingly terminal pessimism, many MPs on the government benches would happily take the Wilson outcome: four years in opposition followed by a Labour return to power has to be better than the 18 years in the wilderness after Callaghan’s defeat.”
“Brown’s major task is to stop looking and sounding like a loser, whether it’s in the chamber of the House of Commons, or in the TV studios.
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