And, although we're not supposed to say this, Brown was an obvious nutter who had the personal appeal of a sack of cold vomit. Government ground to a halt because he wouldn't permit others to take decisions and couldn't take them himself, and he simply failed to understand that the idea of being a prime minister is chair cabinet meetings and delegate pretty well everything other than tone and direction to individual departmental minister.
In a past age, a technocrat prime minister with no personal charm might have worked, although it's hard to think of an example where it actually has (even Churchill could speak and write). But in 2010, a leader who is personally repulsive is going to lose, and no amount of Polly Toynbee op-eds telling us he's charming in private (when, in fact, all the accounts are that he's actually even more obnoxious one-to-one than he appears in public) are going to work. Running a disgraceful Nixon-esque dirty tricks department, that believes circulating rumours about opposition politicians' wives is good politics, happened on his watch, and his total refusal to deal with Damien McBride showed a man who was both weak and a sociopathic bully. Labour MPs knew this, and yet did nothing. Meanwhile, the population of Britain, who Labour affect to care about, are being savaged by a horrific right-wing government, whilst Labour politicians who were cowards too afraid to challenge Brown live in a life of state-funded luxury. Alan Johnson, Jack Straw, Harriet Harman: hang your heads in shame, because you delivered Britain into the hands of a cruel and dangerous government, through your cowardly refusal to deal with the cancer at the heart of the party.
I was 14 when Thatcher came to power, 32 when Blair brought in a Labour government. My elder daughter's 14. I've told her to expect a Labour government around when she's 32. It's tragic, isn't it?