Brown Bullied

As the new political season swings into action nothing seems to have changed down at number 10. Yesterday Brown was forced to sack one of his whips, Siobhain McDonagh, after she called for a leadership election. McDonagh would usually be seen as a Brown ally and not one of the "usual suspects" of rebel MP's. Today another government loyalist, Joan Ryan MP, makes the same call.

There needs to be 70 MP's calling for a leadership contest before Labour are duty bound to hold one. The way these calls have been staggered over the two days (with probably more to come over the next few days) it's likely that the contest calling MP's know they haven;t got the numbers yet but are hoping that one-by-one they're setting the ball rolling before Labour's conference.

Will Brown be Labour leader come the next election? I just don't know. Common sense tells me that Labour MP's must know that keeping Brown is like Turkeys voting for Christmas, but something is telling me that a leadership contest just won't happen, not now anyway.

Hat tip to Glyn Davies who commented on Siobhain McDonagh's calls yesterday by saying:

To this observer, it does not look like an isolated act. She's a whip, and they know a bit about tearoom chatter. I expect another grenade to be lobbed into the Brown Bunker tomorrow from behind another unexpected bush.

Well called Glyn!

Note: An anon corrects my spelling of Joan and a third Labour MP, George Howarth, calls for a leadership election.