Brown's government in administration and likely to be wound up

The Brown bounce that arrived so unexpectedly in the autumn has gone. The partial recovery in the polls has turned again into a slump. Brown's standing is falling faster than the share value of a bank. Were Brown a financial services company, hedge funds would be selling him short.

Labour MPs however are not selling up. They are sticking with Brown, and will continue to do so until after the general election. Assuming Labour goes down to defeat (and much can happen in the space of a few weeks in politics, never mind the 15 months or so to the likely date of the general election) Labour will dump Brown faster than they can blink. And then comes the decision as to who will take over. Looking at the likely options, I can understand why Labour are in no rush to pack Brown off to his retirement home. They could have The Lady Harriet, but since a fair chunk of the Labour party wants to put the boot in on Tory toffs, they won't be able to do it without blushing if she we at the helm. Then there is Ed Balls, but he would really scare the horses. Then there is Milliband The Younger (The Older blew it last year) but no one outside Parliament knows who he is (which admittedly could be an advantage.) Alan Johnson is a credible candidate but lacks the suport (and probably the ambition).

So despite the collapsing share value of Brown, Labour will stick with him. The guy may be unsuited to the task of Prime Minister, he may never answer a question and he may be addicted to spin, but he is not an ogre or a buffoon. Assuming Labour are defeated in the general election, he will have the misfortune of being seen by history as the failure who followed the much more successful Blair.

Brown as Chancellor claimed to have delivered the successful ecomony which was the foundation of the Blair years. He must be feeling a certain degree of bitterness that almost as soon as he switched from Chancellor to Prime Minister, that apparent economic success evaporated. I guess the Downing St air must have been thick with expletives yesterday therefore when Brown lost out to Blair for the highly coveted position as the first major European politician to meet Obama.

Meanwhile, Brown's claims that he has saved the world and is showing Johnnie Foreigner how to save their economies took a bit of a roasting from the French today. President Sarkozy laid into the VAT cut though the Germans had beaten him to it. They went for the jugular on the economy a few weeks ago.

There is a feeling that the government has gone into administration and few believe it can be saved from bankruptcy. It is not a going concern. The millions who lent Labour their vote over the past decade or so, are feeling their investment hasn't paid off and may well be looking to have this Labour government wound up.

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