Labour's Inevitable Self-Destruction

"Et tu Milipede?": He who lives by the banana...

Iain Dale notes that as yet there has been no sign of Mandelson riding to the rescue of Brown in his latest leadership crisis. He wonders if this means that Brown's on his own this time.

It was [Mandelson], readers will remember, who saved the PM in June, manned the phones and persuaded all sorts of senior Labour figures to stick with Brown. He was also never off the TV or radio.

Am I alone thinking that this time he might not lift a finger?

Good point, but I wonder if it's merely an indication that the Downing Street bunker and senior Labour figures (such as Mandelson) don't think this is anywhere near as serious a challenge as last year's undoubtedly was. But, as they say, who knows?

And it's that question - "who knows?" - that is currently causing Labour massive political damage. No one knows - and that's the point Eric Pickles was making earlier about a party being fit to govern. Labour just isn't any more (if it ever was).

As I said before, I reckon that while this might look like just another Brown leadership crisis, it's actually a lot more than that. It's a Labour party crisis. It's not Brown's premiership that's imploding (I would say that happened some time ago), it's the party itself.

Disunited, decaying, metaphorically and literally bankrupt, Labour is doing what most organisations that find themselves in such a hollowed-out and dysfunctional condition do, and liquidating itself!