MANDY 4 LEADER - PLEASE GOD NO

I knew it. In the great tradition of Jacobean tragedy, and Shakespeare, here comes the Mandy show.

When Gordon Brown saved his bacon recently by signing a pact with the Prince Of Darkness, it was clear there would be a price to pay. In return for redemption, Brown had several months to turn things round but should it fail his Great Protector ( bit like trusting the Child Snatcher with your kids) would become Great Enemy and go for the job he's wanted all his life.

Mandelson's many Mates With Money are already talking him up as a leadership possibility and at the bookies he is apparently 16-1. A seat, so I read today, is already being lined up for him in Durham where former Whip Hilary Armstrong is standing down. Nice.

The truly terrifying thing is that with Purnell, Blears and others now out of the equation it could actually be that this latterday Iago will be plotting behind the scenes to take over .

It could just be silly season stuff by the papers but somehow there is a ring of of inevitability about the speculation. Who, after all, is briefing them? And, at a time when Labour MPs are shaking in their seats the utterly unthinkable could become perceived as some last-ditch solution. Let us hope not........

MILBURN AND BYERS.......

... Are allegedly the ringleaders of the e-mail plot to oust Gordon Brown. Do I believe that? Probably, yes. The don't seem to get it that re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, without changing the direction the ship is going in, matters not a jot.

NO PLOTTING ON THE LEFT...

The rumour mill is going frantic with talk of a round robin letter being circulated by backbenchers who want Gordon Brown to go. A source at Westminster asks me to point out this is not the machinations of the left, or any possible left candidate, but Blairites ( again) who want to see Alan Johnson elected without a contest. That would of course be utterly unacceptable. Both to the Labour Party and to the public.

CONSPIRACIES AND REBELLIONS -

Christmas finally over with and news emerges that in the New Year Gordon Brown will face the prospect of a parliamentary defeat . Why? Because he stubbornly presses ahead with plans for 42-day detention of suspected terrorists with no clear evidence this is worth pursuing. Even the DPP has condemned him, along with civil liberties groups and a swathe of MPs, including people like Leeds MP Fabian Hamilton ( hardly a serial rebel) . As the Tories and Liberal Democrats will also oppose, it's quite likely Brown will lose the vote. And he deserves to. Why? Because, as Alan Simpson says in today's Independent this is a

self-inflicted and completely unnecessary wound.

Blair made a career out of being at odds with his Party and it now looks like Brown is intent on doing the same. But unlike Blair, it's clear that Brown will not command the same kind of loyalties. New research from Nottingham University has revealed. that more Labour MPs defied the government whips in the Prime Minister's first month than any other post-war premier.
Labour backbenchers defied the whips 43 times, with the first rebellion coming less than an hour after he took over the reins of power. By way of contrast, Harold Wilson enjoyed 16 months of unity before a lone Labour MP rebelled over pensions policy. But that was in the days when we had Labour Governments which did not ape the Tories at every turn......It really hasn't been a good few months for Brown and already the conspiracy theorists are talking up talk of a plot to oust him. Things, it seems, are not going to get better......