Overestimating the Labour Party

I am forced to admit that I misjudged the nature of the Hoon-Hewitt plot. I credited them with having lined up some sort of serious Cabinet-level support (I have to say I assumed they had squared it with Mandelson). Whatever flaws you might attribute to the pair, they were once serious players in the New Labour world. But such is the collapse of confidence in the party that no one looks like they know what they are doing any more. I made the mistake of thinking that because Hoon and Hewitt were once part of a finely honed Labour machine, they were still at the top of their game. Daft really.

But how about this for a conspiracy theory suggested by one reader? Hoon and Hewitt have no political future so perhaps it was a fake coup designed to bolster Gordon Brown’s position. Well, anything’s possible. 

I think it’s more likely that the Labour Party is now so dysfunctional that it is impossible to find a rational explanation for much that happens any more.