There was a fascinating piece from Martin Kettle in the Guardian today. The headline was slightly laboured but encapsulated the argument well: “An October revolt is plotted. Brown’s head is not safe yet”.
Kettle wears his Blairite loyalties on his sleeve, so it’s pretty easy to see where he is getting his ministerial briefings from. He is well-connected in just the sort of places where the Prime Minister is disliked the most.
But his clear bias does not stop him from making some important points. The first is that the optimum period for a putsch against Brown is the week immediately after party conference season. As Kettle points out, the argument against the present PM leading the Labour Party into the next election has been the same for some time. At the heart of all discussion on the subject is the very real possibility that the present leadership could lead the party into a defeat so catastrophic that it will not recover.
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