“Whatever your opinion of Brown’s record of chancellor, there is no doubt that he is hugely experienced compared to George Osborne”

When push comes to shove, and the shit is already flying around the room having hit the fan months ago, the experience argument will not swing it for Labour in the slightest. Look at London: Ken was extraordinarily more experienced than Johnson, who hadn’t even taken an interest in London prior to running to be its mayor.

2010 will be what the Americans call “a change election”: not that the Tories will offer anything substantially different to the status quo, but people will be so fed up they won’t care who runs the country as long as it isn’t Labour.

2010 could be a re-run of 1992, or it might not. As for bringing back Clarke, I don’t think Cameron would think it’s worth the grief from the Europhobes.

“the British are a notoriously cautious electorate, and it’s not beyond the scope of possibility that maybe, if the current global credit crisis continues, they’ll stick with what they know.”

I disagree. I only have anecdotal support for my view, but I wouldn’t be surprised that “what they know” is that Gordon Brown was in charge of the ship leading up to this crisis and despite all of his calls to the contrary he’s managed to allow us to become one of the weakest players in Europe economically.

Yes, he may be more experienced, but what is that worth when that experience has alienated a whole load of university students through student loans, the poor through removal of the 10p tax band, the rich through excessive “green” taxes and everyone else in between by not controlling the housing market as he claimed he would? I don’t think there is a single person in this country that couldn’t find a way that something Gordon Brown has directly done has had a long standing detriment on them, whether really objectively justifiable or not.

This is where the “experience” argument kind of backfires…do people really want more of what they know if what they know is something they also know they hate?

This is a hilarious pickle the Labour bods have got themselves into. They are running around wailing to the fates ‘how do we save ourselves from calamity?’ like in some classical tragedy, yet all the while they are asking the wrong questions which brings the moment of final devastation all the more close.

It shouldn’t matter who leads you if everyone knows what they should be doing.

But Brown still outshines all his cabinet colleagues, so he cannot use their performance to explain why his position is being weakened.

I think Michael White does make a strong argument and Brown does need to recognise the balance of politicianship within the cabinet and isolate the bad apples, and that if it takes a serious national crisis for him to set the ship in order then that can only be a good thing for his, the party’s and the country’s fortunes.

At the end of the day this was Major’s triumph – he didn’t collapse amidst all the wrangling and in-fighting or all the conspiracies and corruption, he set in gang a resolute if limited political programme of reform in which his lagacy has seen him vindicated to a large extent. Although he didn’t choose his own departure history is treating him generously (if not kindly) – perhaps we should be eternally thankful Kinnock never took over.

So the question should be (and it is a vital distinction to make) – what are the limits of Brown’s programme, and not, what the extent of it is.

I think he would do himself huge credit by taking a more active role on the global stage (a quasi UN Chancellor of the Exchequer) and leaving domestic policy more in the hands of the underlings and let them take the blame where they fail – if the problems are global, he needs to go global. So no longer the micro-manager obsessing over obscure minor statistics.

Of course Brown may not pull the iron out of the fire, but he would save his reputation and save the long-term future of his party (had Major failed to win in 1992 it is likely the Conservatives would have split along lines of European policy over Maastricht).

So the immediate post-conference action needs to be the ‘reshuffle’. I’d recommend to make one, and only one, move: to send Miliband to the back-benches as the sacrificial lamb.

This would show Brown recognises his mistake and is prepared to take decisive targeted action (while also punishing disloyalty – turning Miliband into the Portillo figure). This will be a stunning, decisive and completely unexpected move to completely overshadow any other changes (including his replacement) and will reassert the direction of the party in one fell swoop. In his place I’d simply promote Douglas Alexander who seems to have been learning the brief in International Development and is close to Brown anyway.

Sorted.

If further adjustments are need in January then he can make them then.