Across the pond

I may have used this headline before. No matter.

Gordon Brown, who stems from Old Labour roots, has since he became Prime Minister, been more Blairite than Tony Blair himself, in allying himself with George W Bush’s America.

In the last few days he has switched around, after reading in the ‘capitalist press’ about the collapse of American consumer capitalism.

He is now switching back to his former agenda of Old Labour, because the Labour vote in the polls has been wiped out by the new MacMilianism of David Cameron. His chances of winning Labour votes are slight. His chances of winning the votes of people who are not Labour are nil.

He is yesterday’s man.

Labour needs a new leader if it is not going to be wiped out in the new election.

It needs someone who is more in tune with with the world as it is, after Bair and after Brown, and, equally important, after George W Bush, who will go back to his ranch on November 4 next.

The time has come for Gordon Brown to join Roy Hattersley in the House of Lords. And to continue to make a contribution by writing for the newspapers.

Will he choose to write for the Murdoch press. (His style is more The Times than The Sun.) or will he compete for a space on The Guardian opinion pages?

Who knows.

But Labour in Manchester needs to be picking a new leader who can have some hope of producing a halfway decent performance in the next election.