They're doomed. Doomed.

As for the idea that he needs to change: purrrrrlease. Brown can't change. He hasn't morphed into a different Brown as PM: he is exactly what he has always been: incompetent, over-rated and barely fit for office. There's no scope for change. There's just Brown, with all the defects inherent in that. I watched him on Marr and Boulton yesterday and it was car crash TV. The all-new smiley humble changed Brown is, if anything, even worse then the original robotic Brown, given how unconvincing and false the act is. My wife, who is far from parti pris in these things, said she was physically unable to carry on watching, so weird was the spectacle.

And yet for all that the key Labour figures realise their problem, they appear unwilling to act, leaving the incompetent waste of space in office and, in so doing, actively contributing to their own forthcoming fate.

Do they want to lose? If you were presented with clear evidence that pursuing a certain course would bring disaster, would you not take immediate action to change course? You might not know what would be the best new course to take, but you'd be damn sure to try to work out an alternative. But no: this lot just rally round and plough on. What a shower.