Blairites feel about Gordon Brown the same way that Thatcherites feel about Michael Heseltine. Hezza was a thorn in her side, a block to her radicalism and a continuous threat to her leadership.

Thatcherite Ultras always wanted to do him in, in the end he did for her. Now Blair is too weak to sack or shaft Brown. The parallel breaks down, because the risk taking Heseltine had the guts to take her on, whereas the calculated cowardice of Brown shows he lacks the courage of a great leader.

Now the political situation is a win-win for the Tories. A weak Blair can limp on as New Labour follows the path of the Soviet Communist Party into extinction and popular revulsion or Brown can fight openly for the leadership, dividing the Old and the New Labourites. One thing is for sure, the Tories will be watching gleefully as Labour goes into decline. Old Labourites who place their hope in Brown would do well to remember that Brown designed the PFI and all the other hated instruments of New Labour’s domestic policy failures, he was supportive on Iraq, he is as slavishly pro-American as you can get and Gordon Brown will never bring back Clause 4.

Tories know that a Brown led Labour party will turn England blue. Focus group polling shows that Brown is utterly detested by the English. So he won’t win a general election for the Scottish Raj against Cameron even if he does win the Labour party’s leadership.