In crisis, there’ll be an opportunity for Brown

If Livingstone loses on Thursday and the Labour vote slumps elsewhere in the country, the headlines for Gordon Brown will be dire and he’ll be plunged further into the mire. But in this crisis there will be a brief window of opportunity for him. The press will be in full ‘government in crisis mode’ and getting so excited by the remote prospect of a leadership challenge that Brown will actually have the freedom to carry out a drastic reshuffle. It will be embarrassing and humiliating for Brown to sack or demote those who he chose less than a year ago, but Brown will already be embarrassed and humiliated so he might as well get all the bad news out at once.

The signs are that Brown will not have a clear out straight after the elections; Downing Street fears that this would signal that the Prime Minister has hit the panic button.