Whatever happens today, Gordon will be challenged

Today is Gordon's Day, and by the end of it we will be probably be hearing all the usual stuff about how the Chancellor has once again underlined his status as a political colossus of modern times and how, as Labour MPs reel from the sheer force and brilliance of his intellect, the likelihood of a leadership challenge has now diminished. But much as I would like to believe that to be the case, I'm afraid I won't believe a word of it.

I make no bones about the fact that I am in the Margaret Beckett camp of people who do not believe a Cabinet-level challenge to Brown for the Labour leadership is either necessary or desirable. I think Gordon has demonstrated over the past 10 years that he is the outstanding candidate, and to hold an election now strikes me as rather akin to the common sporting practice of making the club that finishes top of the league by a wide margin play off against the one finishing a distant second for the sake of generating a bit more excitement for the spectators.

But I readily accept that is not how most people see it - even among visitors to this blog. My current POLL shows that only approximately one sixth of respondents think there should not be a Cabinet-level challenge, and some of them are people who support Michael Meacher or John McDonnell rather than Gordon. There seems to be a consensus in the Labour Party - which I happen not to share - that a serious contest would be useful as opposed to a potentially divisive distraction.

And if that view is becoming widespread in the party, it is even more so in the media. Slowly, the pressure has been building - even among left-leaning pundits - for a serious challenge and when Blair actually goes, that pressure will become intolerable.

The campaign to question Gordon Brown's credentials has been conducted mainly through opinion polls designed to show that he would do worse than Tony Blair in a straight contest with David Cameron, even though practically no-one disputes that Labour's position in the polls is bound to improve when Blair finally quits. This has been accompanied by regular guerilla activity questioning Brown's methods and ways of working with colleagues, culminating in yesterday's Gordon the Stalinist attack by former Cabinet Secretary Lord Turnbull.

Its aim was to create the conditions in which a challenge became viewed as desirable and I think it has now succeeded in that. In other words, it has created a need for someone to step forward and fill a vacuum, and human nature being what it is, sooner or later someone will do so.

If not David Miliband, then John Reid or Alan Johnson. If not Reid or Johnson, then John Hutton or Hazel Blears. If no member of the Cabinet, then Charles Clarke or Alan Milburn. Even Jack Straw could come into the reckoning as a compromise candidate if the current run of bad polls continues.

The crown is still Brown's to lose, and a good Budget performance this afternoon would make it all the more certain he would win such a contest. But I think he can forget the coronation now. The Blarites - and more importantly their friends in Fleet Street - simply aren't going to let it happen.

Bailey on Freddie

For the benefit of those who missed it yesterday, here's blogger Richard Bailey's compelling verdict on why Andrew Flintoff should never have been chosen to captain England in the Ashes series.

"That we so much as considered giving the Captaincy to a man who presents himself to the Queen pissed is intolerable. That he should continue any where near a position of authority after a 5-0 whitewash and the most spineless English series performance ever, is beyond reason.

"The man is a drunk, a talented one perhaps, but a drunk all the same and I for one am thrilled that he has revealed his true colours and will never again presume to lead England in any context ever again."

Sheer class - or is that classism? Either way, it made me laugh.

Justice for Terry Lloyd

Forty years ago this year, a young Derbyshire police officer by the name of Aled Lloyd was killed in a panda car accident while answering a false emergency call. It was the kind of tragedy that would have broken many families, but with the support of their mother Agnes, Aled's two young sons Kevin and Terry went on to make their respective marks in the world of television, one as an actor, the other as an award-winning journalist.

Against that backdrop, the death of Kevin Lloyd from alcoholism brought on by the pressures of TV stardom in 1998 was bad enough. But the killing of Terry Lloyd by US forces shortly after the start of the Iraq War in 2003 was, for me, the saddest episode in the whole wretched debacle.

So I wholeheartedlty support the campaign launched by Terry's former boss at ITN, David Mannion, to make it a war crime to intentionally kill a journalist.

It is too late for Terry, and for Agnes who died shortly before him. But not too late to hope that some good may yet come of the senseless death of this brave reporter - truly a "local hero" up here in God's Own County.