Could Gordon stand down?

Today's Saturday Column poses the question that would have been unthinkable even a few short weeks ago: Could Gordon Brown stand down as Labour leader before the next General Election?

The digested read goes something like:

Labour MPs are now openly speculating as to whether Brown will fight on 2009/10.

This is in part down to the government's recent disasters, and in part to a sense that the Prime Minister is not enjoying the job.

Unless the political situation improves for Labour, there would be little to be gained by Brown staying on indefinitely.

The silver lining is that neither D. Miliband nor Balls come up to the mark as potential successors.

Having long believed that Brown did indeed have what it takes to renew Labour in office, this is not a scenario I hoped or expected to be outlining at this stage in the lifetime of his premiership, but it is becoming a very real possibility nonetheless.

I would say he has, at best 6-9 months to turn the situation round. If by that stage the prospect of a David Cameron election victory has hardened into inevitability, Labour really would have little to lose by changing horses once again.

The Special One

I don't especially like Jose Mourinho - the man's obvious arrogance aside, his tactics at Chelsea with the wonderful players at his disposal seemed unduly negative at times - but there is no doubt that he is the man favoured by readers of this blog to restore the fortunes of England's national side.

The full result of my poll on who should succeed Steve McClaren was as follows:

Jose Mourinho 40%
Fabio Capello 13%
Martin O'Neill 12%
Harry Redknapp 9%
Arsene Wenger 7%
Guus Hiddink 6%
Sven Goran Eriksson 5%
Stuart Pearce 3%
Luis Felipe Scolari 3%
Sam Allardyce 2%

The interesting thing about this, particularly on a blog that is read by quite a lot of English nats, is that readers don't seem that bothered about the nationality issue. Only 26pc went for a British manager as opposed to 74pc for a foreigner.

As I've said before, my choice would still be Hiddink, on account of his track record in achieving success with ordinary players. Wayne Rooney and possibly Gabriel Agbonlahor aside, let's not kid ourselves that we are currently awash with young talent in this country.

Not a day longer

Natually I will oppose any attempt by the government to extend the period of detention without charge by longer than 28 days - it is far too long already - but I've not blogged specifically on this since Sunny Hundal and my co-conspirators over at Liberal Conspiracy are doing a pretty good job already.

I would just add that on the whole gamut of issues surrounding individual liberty, including of course ID cards, it seems to me that the Tories are currently more in tune with the public mood than the government, a peculiar and rather dangerous position for an avowedly left-of-centre administration to be in.