Street tough?
Some observations from our weekly politics conference in no particular order:
The rumblings in the Labour party to the effect that Tony should step aside promptly in favour of Gordon are of limited effectiveness as long as Gordon himself doesn't want to seize power immediately. Having waited this long, GB would be better off waiting to see how the land lies after European constitutional referendums, Tory leadership battles and a few nail-biting Commons votes on unpopular bills left over from the last parliament. If we were the Chancellor, we would wait until close enough to the next election so that a vote for Gordon's Labour feels like a vote for change instead of a vote for (yet) more of the same. At the moment all we are seeing is rumblings of a pro-Brown coup with no Brown in it.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the floor there is much excitement about David Cameron and George Osborne (pictured). Cue over use of 'young blood' metaphors and references to Blair and Brown back in the 90s (minus the front bench experience and record of tackling their own party on difficult modernising issues). The question for Westminster conspiracy theorists is: did Michael Howard shove whipper-snapper Osborne onto the front line to give him a clear shot at the top job or was it rather a ploy to have him cut down to size as soon as he comes up against Gordon Brown in the Commons?
We love it when politics gets dirty interesting.
