It seems likely that Blair will be gone next week. Not to me, but to all the journalists who are carefully preparing us for some annoucement to come after the local and regional elections.
It is more and more certain that Brown will become leader of the Labour party with no opposition. A stagering 73% of the electorate think there should be an immediate general election.
This should come as no surprise and is, in fact quite right for a whole number of reasons. Talk of a “deal” more than a decade ago always left the electorate worried that the centerist and eminently electable Blair would step aside and allow his more left-wing running mate years in the top job. Blair promised at the last election that he would not do this, a promise that has no constitutional merrit, but has a moral significance.
Brown is a fundamentally different kind of politician to Blair. If he wishes to govern, he should seek his own mandate to do so, not ride on the mandate of someone who has been a frustration to him for years.