Loyalty and Cowardice

You can tell things are bad for Gordon Brown by all the people not running for the Labour leadership at the moment. Jack Straw isn’t running. Harriet Harman isn’t running. And David Miliband certainly isn’t. And yet they should be running. Each and every one of them. I think not one of them is worthy of the title of Prime Minister, and I don’t think anyone of them is capable from rescuing the Labour party from the doldrums. But it is a national embarrassment to have such a compromised and beleaguered figure as Prime Minister. Brown should be forced to stand down.

It is utterly surreal that the *leading lights* of the Labour party are professing loyalty to Brown. What, precisely, has he done to deserve such loyalty? Seizing power in a coup d’etat? Ducking winnable elections? Destroying his party’ standing in the polls? Handing key by-elections to rival parties? Hardly a startling track record, is it? Whatever you think of John Major, he could at least claim to be a vote winner. Brown can only claim to be a colossal failure.

There comes a point when loyalty ceases to be a virtue and instead becomes mindless foolishness. The Labour party has reached that point. And the failure of Miliband, Straw and Harman to act speaks more about their cowardice in the face of the awkward bully Brown than it does about their loyalty.