Brown Lives to Lose Another Election

I meant to write about this yesterday, but professional responsibilities interfered: I believe I am setting records for tardiness in submitting my grades for the year. Since I’m the equivalent of department chair, I’m not about to have a meeting with myself over the issue. However, since I also appear to be the proud owner of a 39% overspend in my part time teaching budget, somebody somewhere here will want to meet with me soon enough.

Gordon Brown somehow managed to survive Monday night’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. I’m not surprised. The rebels are disorganized, lacking in coherent strategy or a consensus alternative. When Alan Johnson, the most likely replacement for Brown, was moved into the Home Office the other day, it was fairly clear that dumping Brown was delayed, at best. This was a shrewd tactical move on Brown’s part as the Home Office is an ambition graveyard. But when Michael Portillo comes out in favor of Johnson as Labour’s only hope on May 31, and the Independent reports on a poll that shows a Johnson-led Labour Party would prevent the Tories from attaining an outright Parliamentary majority in an election, Brown had to do something. I’m still mulling over Johnson’s tactical reasons for accepting the post.

Brown, still Prime Minister, is attempting to regain the initiative by flirting with electoral reform, which I will write about soon. Procedurally, he is about a year too late to ward off a probable Tory victory in the next election, of course.