Keep on Rollin'

So, it looks like Gordy will be sticking around for now. These attempted coups are always fascinating to watch. They remind me of a playground scrap: everybody circling uncertainly, waiting for someone, anyone to kick things off.

The Cabinet heavyweights, (just about) James Purnell aside, don't seem too keen to get involved, whatever their true feelings about the Labour leadership. Straw, Milliband, Harman, Johnson and, interestingly, Mandelson seem to want to stand by their man, though all for their own reasons, of course. Maybe, as the above cartoon alleges, they were some of the ones organising the coup all along. Still, their public support makes for quite a security blanket for GB.

Make no mistake, though, it was by no means inevitable that knives would remain in their sheaths. I suspect that the main reason GB still has his job is that the alternatives aren't especially attractive at this time. Everybody thinks Labour will lose the next Election. It's pretty difficult to see that changing, even if the leadership did. Also, I understand that the pressure on any new PM to call an instant election would be overwhelming. Who in their right mind would want to risk their political skin just to govern the country for one measly month? That's not the way anybody wanted to go down in history.