Brown’s leadership: what is the tipping point?

How badly will Labour have to do in June’s local and European elections for Brown to realise the game is up or for the Party to move against him?

The current polls are saying Tories 45%, Labour 26% and the Lib Dems 17-22%. Run those figures through local election predictions, and I guess you get three headline figures on June 5th:

1. Labour will come third, behind the Tories and the Lib Dems
2. The Tories will poll in the high forties, and possibly touch the 50% mark
3. Labours vote will slump to the low 20’s and possibly not even get past the 20% figure

I’m no psephologist, but I guess that would be the worst electoral performance by a governing party in history, even eclipsing John Major’s dismal results in the mid 1990’s.

At least it is a record that would only stand for two days, because on Sunday 7th June, when the Euro-results are counted, Labour will do even worse.

Five years ago, at the height of the protests against the Iraq war, Labour suffered a drubbing at the Euro-elections and polled just 22%. My instinct is that they are even more unpopular now, so one can assume that they won’t reach the 20% mark this time. The Sunday Telegraph reports that one Labour insider is predicting the Party’s vote will slump to 17%. This may be part of the Party’s campaign to dampen expectations, but such a result would be disastrous for the governing party.

The Euro-elections are much harder to call as the proportional system encourages voters to choose from an array of freak fringe parties of fascists, nationalists and greens. If Labour secures a second place with less than 20% of the vote (which is probably the best they can hope for now), Brown’s position looks precarious. If Labour’s poll ratings fall further into the teens, they could then be slugging it out for fifth place against the Lib Dems, UKIP, Greens and BNP. At that level, Brown would surely be a goner.

Even if he does survive, Brown has the publication of the MPs expenses to contend with in July. According to today’s press reports, one Labour MP bought a sauna on expenses, and three others are said to have been put on ‘suicide watch’ by party whips as their expenses will reveal that they had affairs.

I doubt No.10 are humming Labour’s theme song for the 1997 election, “Things can only get better”, anymore.