Sunday, 7 June 2009

Sunday 7th June 2009

Its been a disastrous week for Gordon Brown, but the worst may be yet to come, as tonight the results of the European election are announced, with Labour themselves expecting "terrible" results.
I think the real key moment this week was when Secretary of State for Work and Pensions James Purnell resigned. We had already seen Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears step down from the Cabinet, but the feeling is they were pushed rather than jumped, after being implicated in the recent expenses controversy. It is true that Purnell was also involved in this expenses scandal, but so were most of the Cabinet, I'm sure Gordon Brown wouldn't have wanted a bright young Minister such as Purnell to step down.
The real dagger in the heart for Brown was James Purnell's resignation letter, printed on the front page of Friday's edition of The Times, in which he states he believes Brown's leadership "makes a Conservative victory more, not less likely."
Purnell then calls on Brown to resign as leader "to give our party a fighting chance of winning", a direct plea for our Prime Minister to step down from a now former member of his own Cabinet.
Whether we will have a new Labour leader in the next couple of months in hard to tell, but I would think with Brown's stubborn personality he'll want to fight on until next May and call a general election in which he'll have no chance of winning.
And I imagine after this week Tony Blair is sitting at home with a great big smile on his face.

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