‘There is nothing saying Labour will ever win power again’

The choice facing the governing party is between defeat and annihilation, says Fraser Nelson. For now, Labour is mired in ‘division without decision’ as Jack Straw, David Miliband and others wait to see who — if anyone — will wield the knife against Gordon Brown

The catalpa trees in New Palace Yard are in bloom, a glorious heatwave has struck London. Yet dark despair is curling through the core of the Labour party. From Cabinet level to the rank and file, there is a hardening awareness that for Gordon Brown to fight the next election would be to court disaster. Yet no one can say with confidence how the Prime Minister might be persuaded to leave. Between the two political realities lies an abyss, into which the Labour party may tumble headlong. Among an increasing number of ministers, the talk is no longer of defeat — but outright electoral annihilation.

Parliament may be into the second week of recess, yet this has done nothing to restrain or slow the plotting. Jack Straw was first out of the traps, positioning himself as a stabilising force who might yet become something much more: he has, supposedly, been ‘calming’ ministers who have asked him to help remove the Prime Minister since the Glasgow East disaster. The none-too-subtle subtext, of course, is that it is he — and not David Miliband — to whom senior colleagues are looking for leadership. The Foreign Secretary has quickly responded by laying out the beginnings of a personal manifesto in a Guardian article calling for ‘radical change’. Thus — whatever is said to the contrary — the battle for the succession is already underway. Seconds out, round one.

Ministers are already on manoeuvres. Reports of Harriet Harman saying ‘this is my time’ as the Glasgow East result came in would be laughed off as innocent delusion, had she not unilaterally announced she is ‘minding the shop’ in Mr Brown’s absence (which Number 10 denies).