The mood on the terraces..
- 10 May 06, 07:38 PM
Leading a political party is a little like managing a great football club. So says Tony Blair. He knows that managers have to worry when their team questions their authority and the crowd stays silent. At Question Time today the prime minister was at a bay with a sea of sullen and silent faces behind him.
It's only fair to point out that around two-thirds of Labour MPs have been elected since 1997 and have no experience of being behind in the polls. Like football teams and crowds, politics is a rollercoaster ride of disasters followed by triumphs.
And yet, I believe that something fundamental changed in the Labour Party this week. What's more, one of Tony Blair's normally loyal Cabinet colleagues who I've spoken to agrees. The prime minister - he told me - has been forced to confront a calm, reasonable but implacable view that he has got to go. He has been forced to recognise that his advisers have been misleading him when they say that these calls come only from those who want a return to Old Labour. There is, of course, another view. That says that Gordon Brown and his friends are fatally dividing their party in their desperation for him to take over at Number 10. Whoever is right, the effect of all this was on display at PMQs.
The prime minister's friends hope that the worst is over. They say that he has got the message from his MPs that he has got to work with Gordon Brown on a smooth transfer of power. The problem though is that there is no agreement - and none may indeed be possible - on how to reach agreement or when it should come into operation.
The manager's not about to be sacked but for the first time a significant section of the Labour Party are thinking about it.
Update, Thu 10:15 AM - In the comments, a few of you said you wanted to watch PMQs. You can do so by clicking here.
