This must be excruciating for Gordon Brown
I know lots of people want Gordon Brown to go. He is perceived to have lost the election and many are angered that he is still in No 10.
However Brown is just performing his constitutional duty. We have to have a Prime Minister and government and until an alternative emerges through whatever negotiations need to take place and the incumbent must remain until then. It would be irresponsible of him to resign prematurely frankly and those calling for him to do so right now should stop it. I fully expect that he will be gone within the next few days. For my money I cannot conceive of how, even if some deal with Labour could be brokered, Brown could remain as PM.
According to Jon Sopel, Brown was bad tempered towards Nick Clegg in a phone call last night. I expect the pressure of the situation and the infuriating (for him) position he now finds himself in is taking its toll. It sounds a bit like raging against the dying of the light and taking it out on one of the people who is likely to play a part in the future when he is already part of the past.
If it makes his opponents feel any better, I am certain that Gordon Brown is not enjoying this. Whatever you think about him, he is a proud man who is now very diminished. He may still sit in the same office, with the same furniture and decor and yet at the same time everything has changed.
Although he still has power according to the constitution, the centre of political power has now moved elsewhere.
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I think you're right - but I'm not sure anyone else is enjoying this either - principally Nick Clegg & David Cameron.
I'm starting to wonder if the best thing for "progressive left" - by which I mean Lib-Dem & Labour - might well be to just step aside and let the Tories try and stew in their own mess. I'm not sure though that that would actually be best for the country - because I think they'd screw up very badly.
One way or another I think that we're in for another election within 12 months - I suspect it will be under first past the post terms & conditions unfortunately
Gordon Brown is a deeply unpleasant man who has arrived at his current position through a combination of bullying and smears.
I want him to suffer intensely for the misery he has inflicted on this country.
Fortunately Cameron and Clegg are showing promising signs of an agreement that will keep this sociopathic weirdo out of power.
Good
"he is a proud man who is now very diminished"
He has absolutely nothing to be proud of. He has reduced a vibrant and solvent nation to the brink of ruin through his own ruthless ambition, arrogance, stupidity and incompetence.
As for 'northernheckler' - 'I'm starting to wonder if the best thing for "progressive left" ... might well be to just step aside and let the Tories try and stew in their own mess.'
Sorry, mate, WHOSE mess? I think you might find that the mess is entirely the making of one A. Blair and one G. Brown. You really aren't going to be able to pin this one on Margaret Thatcher, you know. The utter disaster that is the 13 years of Labour government mirrors the disasters that have been ALL previous Labour governments. Did you know, for example, that EVERY Labour government that this country has been unfortunate enough to suffer has left office with unemployment higher than when it came to power? And this one will have caused the national debt to spiral to four times its level in 1997, to £1,400,000,000,000. We will be paying it, and the interest on it, for a generation, which will stifle growth and drag our economy down further. Well done Gordon. As for schools, hospitals, the army, transport, etc., etc., etc., the less said, the better.
"I'm starting to wonder if the best thing for "progressive left" - by which I mean Lib-Dem & Labour - might well be to just step aside and let the Tories try and stew in their own mess. I'm not sure though that that would actually be best for the country - because I think they'd screw up very badly."
Cobblers.
The mess is one made by brown over 13 years of incompetence. there is no such thing as a progressive left coalition. Brown is not progressive he is tribal. The notion that there is an amorphous group of like thinking libdem and labour voters is rubbish anyway.
The current situation is one demanded by LDs for years ... parties working together for the good of the country. And you just want it to end in a mess - and for selfish reasons as well.
Pathetic.
What exactly makes you think "Brown is just performing his constitutional duty."?
Constitutionally, Brown was entitled to tender his resignation on Friday morning. That would have caused some difficulty for the Queen, although she would have been fully entitled to (i) ask him to stay on pending the outcome of the present negotiations, or (ii) invite Cameron to form a government, or (iii) invite Cameron to see if he could form a government and report back, or (iv) do something else, though exercisable options are few, possibly none.
Everyone knows Brown has to go - although not necessarily New Labour (should Clegg opt to defy the electorate and sustain this rotten government in power). That is Brown's current difficulty - he (not his party) looks like a squatter in Downing Street, staying way beyond his welcome in an unseemly fashion. Tough - and why you choose to make it known you sympathise is unclear.
Disagree on this one, Mark.
Brown started his statement with "I make this statement as PM not as a Party Leader", and went on to make a party political statement - i.e., the usual manipulation.
So, no respect from me for the man.
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