The immediate questions raised by Hazel Blears's criticisms of Gordon Brown are the following: will Brown sack her? And if he doesn't, what does that say about his authority? Are there others from the Blairite wing who might follow suit? And to what extent was Blears's self-detonation planned within that rightwing grouping around the Blairite Progess thinktank?
These are the issues for the short term. But long term, what she and Charles Clarke have done this weekend is show that the war between Blairites and Brownites will stretch long into the future.
This looks like the Blairites' revenge, with Clarke talking of the need to sack Ed Balls because of his links with Damian McBride.
If Brown goes, especially if he is driven out in a Blairite putsch, the bitterness that will be felt by the losers does not bear thinking about. The Balls/Purnell generation will be as riven by it as were Blair and Brown themselves.
In trying to save Labour, some in the party think that what Blears and Clarke are really doing is destroying it.
.png?w=600)
