Gordon Brown: Go. Just, go.

It is arguably in the interests of every major political party to keep Gordon Brown in power. For the Tories, they are pretty much guaranteed a victory in the next election and can use the outstanding two years to put in place some policies to flesh out their anorexic manifesto. Plus, the longer Brown stays in power, the worse the eventual election result would be for the Labour party. An article in The Guardian suggests that, at the current polling levels, the Tory majority will be higher than the one Blair won in 1997. This could be even larger come 2010 if Brown stays as PM.

For the Liberal Democrats, they get the chance to consolidate their position under the Playmobil politician after two or three disastrous years for their party. The catastrophic performance of the Labour party has not given them the rise in popularity that they might expect. They need to work out how they can capitalise on the failings of the Labour party, and how they can exploit the weaknesses of Gordon Brown so they do not miss the chance to become the second party as they did in 1983 and 1997. A new Labour leader might not give them the chance to do this.

The Labour party may want to keep the dithering drip in power for two reasons. Firstly, there is no guarantee that a new leader would be able to improve things for the party. A Miliband or Straw premiership may be just as awful as the Brown administration, albeit it in very different ways. Also, how embarrassing would it be for the Labour party to so publicly admit that their coronation of Brown was not so much a mistake as a total calamity for their party? They’d be ditching him after less than a year – less time than was given to IDS or Ming The Merciful by their respective parties. Labour have the most to lose by Brown staying in power – nonetheless, there are advantages for them as well of keeping the dreadful incumbent PM in power.

Of course, there are others who don’t benefit from keeping Brown in power. Who might that be? Well, the great British public. The poor bastards the above parties purport to represent.

Seriously, keeping Brown in power is a disaster for us. He is clearly not up to the job, and seems to have been having a slow nervous breakdown over the past year. The pressure is paralysing him, the stress is clear to see on his ashen face. And this man is the ambassador for our country. How do think other world leaders perceive him, and therefore us? If they do base their perceptions of us on him, then they will see us as redundant and broken. Brown is incapable of being Prime Minister; he is destroying himself, and damaging us in the process.

And think about the impact his effective incapacity in his role is having on the government. At a time when the economy is in freefall, when our troops are fighting in foreign lands, when civil liberties are under threat on an almost daily basis, the government has descended into plotting, back biting and paranoia. And at a senior level, imagine what a cabinet meeting is like at the moment. Brown brooding at the head of the table, various ministers pushing themselves to succeed him whilst others worry and wonder whether they will still have jobs after the axe has fallen and Gordon is gone. The interests and concerns of the nation are going to secondary to the naked self-interest and the job concerns of those in the Labour government.

Westminster seems to be awash with innuendo, whisper, plots, and the all-pervading sound of knives being sharpened. The House of Commons seems to have descended into navel gazing, of people asking “what if” rather than “what should we be doing now to best serve the interests of their constituents”. Getting MPs to focus on the needs of those who elected them is bad at the best of times – right now, all MPs seem to be worrying about how what is going on at the top is going to affect them. The buck for this catastrophic paralysis stops at the top of the pile. It rests with Gordon Brown. And if he can’t see that it is in the best interests of the country for him to go, then others – in his government or on the opposition benches – should directly tell him that he should resign.

Except no-one – not even the opposition, is directly saying this. And why would they? As I noted above, it may not be in their direct interests to do so.

Perhaps this could be a policy for the Libertarian Party to follow. Point out that they are not in a position to contemplate fighting a General Election, but they are demanding the resignation of Brown and an election anyway because it is in the best interests of the British people to end the stagnation that has overcome the House of Commons. Show that the party is willing to support ideas because they are right for the country, even if they are not in the best interests of LPUK itself. But however it happens, and whoever gets round to saying it first, someone in the political arena has to say it. Brown must go.

In a speech to the commons in World War Two, Neville Chamberlain’s former friend Leo Amery turned on the then Prime Minister and delivered a withering critique of Chamberlain that included this historic rebuke first delivered to the Rump Parliament by Oliver Cromwell:

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”

The time has come for someone to say the same words to Gordon Brown, and in doing so end this travesty of an administration.