Blair/Brown cont.

If there's a figure in 2007 who will have the presumptive crown for "Most disappointing leader" it's going to be Tony Blair by a country mile. Here's a guy who walked in to a landslide victory over the John Major Conservatives to the cheers of reform and New Labour, and will leave office having left a smoking crater of his party and having achieved little (though not zero) of lasting positive impact.

Labour has no chance of winning the next Election because voters think the Government is a shambles - and there is little Gordon Brown can do to stop David Cameron becoming Prime Minister.

That is the devastating verdict of a secret Downing Street memo drawn up for Tony Blair by his senior advisers and obtained by The Mail on Sunday.

The memo also says Blair is thinking about dumping Brown for a younger, new Labour leader. Check out the whole article. Labour might actually be at a lower point now than at any time since Maggie Thatcher left office. Blair is actually more unpopular than she or John Major ever was.

Just to clarify, when I wrote below about people desperate to hang on to their jobs, I wasn't actually talking about the Chretiens and Blairs of the world, though there's plenty to write about that. Rather, it amazes me that both Martin and Brown stood in the wings for about a decade each as their predecessors used up just about every last bit of political goodwill the public had for their parties. When the inevitable departure finally comes, men like Martin and Brown are left with an impossible situation. But this is politics - leaders don't leave early, and the runners-up in the world have to know that. So why stick around for sloppy seconds?