'We shall be filling columns, and Labour MPs will be filling interviews and speeches, with every kind of advice except the thing we suspect to be true: the judgment that takes only two words to deliver, one of which I shall avoid in print.
'To that in a moment. But oh with what beard-stroking solemnity we shall avoid saying this. With what moustache-twiddling ceremoniousness shall we insist on what we know to be twaddle. Prepare yourself then for a great barrage of phrasemaking that will involve the endless repetition, in no particular order, of the following thoughts, typically conjoined with Gordon Brown's name:
wake-up call
message from the electorate
take it on the chin
listen to voters
learn lessons
heed concerns
need for change
get back in touch
sharpen up the act
show contrition
find a new narrative
feel their pain
show humility
understand more
blitz of initiatives
sense of purpose
simpler messages
sharpen the argument
clearer sense of direction
relaunch/refocus/rediscover/
redefine/repair/refresh/reshuffle/rethink/renew
begin fightback
still two years left
'The general wisdom that Labour politicians will anticipate and themselves propose will be, in short, that on Thursday large parts of the British electorate told their Labour Government to pull up its socks, and put it on notice of a general election defeat if it failed to do so.
'Sadly, this is a total misreading. On Thursday the voters told Labour to - well, let us say “push off”. By their votes and abstentions they indicated that they don't like the Government any more. They said they've gone off the new Prime Minister in a big way. They didn't mention anything about being ready to change their minds and I don't for a moment believe they are disposed to.
'It's over. There was nothing constructive in the voters' message. These elections were not an invitation to change. They were a big two-fingered salute, a raspberry, a pressing of the de-trousered national buttocks to the window of the polling station. The voters are bored, tired, disillusioned and out of love. The affair, which in 1997 was (for the British people) uncharacteristically intense, is over, and the falling out is correspondingly bitter. Such flames are not rekindled - and certainly not by Mr Brown, whose personal stamp characterises this administration.
'This columnist's advice to the Parliamentary Labour Party is therefore simple. Give up. With the leader you've got and led as you are, all is lost.
'And there's a second strand to the duff commentary that will be assailing us from today onwards. Having denounced Mr Brown and all his works, pronounced him terminally useless, doubted his ability to get his show back on the road and hinted that he has personality flaws so deep as to doom his premiership, many commentators are going on to say that there can “of course” be no thought of a challenge to his leadership. Labour's rules are too complicated and cumbersome, they say. Labour MPs “lack the killer instinct” shown by Tories and “don't do regicide”. The advice is then concluded with the suggestion that the Party will just have to get behind its leader as best it can, stop rocking the boat, rediscover discipline and carry on to the bitter end hoping for an improvement that the writer has offered reasons for doubting Mr Brown will ever be capable of. I was guilty of this myself last week.
'Gee, thanks, Mr Columnist. So I'll end by challenging this wisdom, though my challenge is ventured hesitantly and with no great confidence.
'It is possible to get bogged down in technical wisdom and miss the obvious. Colleagues don't walk willingly into the bonfire, whatever the rules may say. If it becomes clear to most where the path is leading then one way or another a means may be found to abort the journey. I have no idea who might challenge Mr Brown, or how; but, reasoning backwards from an outcome that many of his tribe must wish for, my instinct is that a way to produce it might be found. Things happen. Where there's a will, there's a bayonet.'
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