IS it the end of Gordon Brown's premiership? Does it matter any more if Labour comes third or fourth after UKIP and the Tories in the European elections? Surely the fact that the question is being asked says enough about Gordon Brown's stewardship of this once omnipotent party?
What does it take for Gordon Brown to go before he takes his ship down with him? Queen Rat Hazel Blears has already gone. King rat James Pernell has gone in spectacular style – saying the master should discreetly be lost overboard to avoid it hittin
g the rocks. Too late I say.
Others with less guile have jumped before they were pushed – most notably the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has had her long-overdue departure bounced in front of us like some 70s orange space hopper. Out of date and out of time. Oh, if only Brown had shown some leadership and put a spike in her balloon six months ago he might have earned more respect.
But no. Just as he failed to handle the looming expenses scandal, so too did he show he lacked the cut and thrust of the rat catcher – and now the rats are swimming to shore before they get to far out in to deep water. And who can blame them?
How must it feel to be Alastair Darling? After all these years of friendship and support towards Brown, after finding himself inheriting Brown's creaking and leaking economic legacy he is left to walk the gang plank, expendable, throwaway, facing ironically the crocodile of doom. (Read your Peter Pan if I'm being too obscure). As if it is Darling's fault!
The fact is that Angus the Monkey has just won his third term as Mayor of Hartlepool – beating 12 all comers including the third-placed Labour candidate. Gordon Brown hasn't even won one election, never mind three.
Are you hard enough Gordon? Will you have a go, now? I doubt it.
Meanwhile in England the local councils are pointing the way we can expect Sunday's European election results to go. As I scan the old ticker tape that is the now the internet I see Labour is losing councillors at an alarming rate of knots. It will be councils next. Then it will be the Government.
I return to the James Parnell resignation.
Let's face it. It is devastating. This could be, should be Gordon Brown's Geoffrey Howe moment. Parnell certainly deserves it for bravery alone. And it would appear that he's not even after the leadership!
Even if Gordon Brown's government manages to stagger on it is more than, as David Cameron said, a Dead Man Walking. It is that Norwegian Blue parrot of Monty Python fame. It is kaput. It is all about when it goes rather than if.
That is why Labour politicians are now seriously thinking about what is more important – the survival of the party, or the survival of Gordon Brown. That's what is has come down to.
It's not looking too clever in Edinburgh or the Lothians either. Let's be honest the worst-case scenario of a Labour wipe out in Edinburgh – or even the Lothians is not that impossible.
It might be unlikely – but between the other parties it could be done. The Tories reckon they can pull it off in Edinburgh South and between them and the SNP they reckon they can beat the Chancellor of the Exchequer (as he currently is).
As one goes across the seats one can see the reasoning to suggest that each one can fall to a different competitor.
This is how the Tories faced wipe out in 1997 – not just from Labour , but a death from a thousand cuts – from all the other parties too. This is how it will be for Labour as well.
The fact that it is even being considered that UKIP, a small and quirk party, never mind the Greens, might take seats from Labour in the European election is frankly amazing.
In Scotland The Greens remain confident that on Sunday they will be amongst the victors. We'll see.
Is there anything that Gordon Brown can do? Apart from resigning, there remains hope – the hope that other MPs, other cabinet ministers will hold their nerve and wait until the real election comes along. When cabinet ministers start to resign that shows that the election has been considered lost and it's all about every man, or Blairite woman, for himself. That point appears to have been reached.
The likelihood is that Labour will therefore have to go through the sort of soul-searching that the Tories have experienced over the last decide – Labour will have to decide what it is for and what is should become.
Does anyone know now? One thing is certain – Gordon Brown will have no say in the matter.
Old-style Tory wetAs if to show the fallibility of politicians Boris Johnson gets a little more than his wellies wet.
Wasn't it funny? Good old Boris. If it were not for people like Boris Johnson showing they were human beings I think the game would be up for the lot of them.
