There will be blood

Mike Smithson of Political Betting thinks that should anybody actually stand up and fight Brown he will meekly stand aside. I think otherwise. I think that Gordon Brown is going to fight harder, and dirtier, than we thought he was capable of. Every time that he has chickened out has been over competing for the next stage in his career, it has never been about protecting the position that he already had. The simple fact that he was able to stay in the top job of chancellor for so long, despite repeatedly setting his attack dogs on his boss, shows that he knows how to keep what he has managed to get.

The fact that he hates electoral contests could simply show that he knows how bad he is with people, he knows that in a personality contest he will lose. To anybody. Or anything. Even if it smells so bad that you don't want to go within ten feet of it. Even if it is so repulsive that the very thought of touching its leprous skin would send shivers down your spine and to actually offer your hand to be shaken by one of its slimy appendages turns your stomach. Perhaps even if it was himself.

We should not underestimate Gordon Brown's intellect. He will know what he is like, you can see that by the insincere attempts to try and fake being likable that he has attempted. They may come across like a clanking automaton being forced to grind its way through actions that it was designed to perform, but it does show that he knows his own weaknesses. It would be hard for somebody of Gordon Brown's intelligence not to have figured them out after all the time that he has been made to spend in his own company, something that would give anybody phycological problems.

His history comes across as one of cowardice but I suspect that it is more like coldly calculated strategy, as human an emotion as cowardice would be as unnatural to Gordon as an unforced smile, he is minimising his risks based on his knowledge of his weaknesses in order to maximise the chance of reaching his goal. He has now reached his goal, the goal he has spent his entire life working towards, so standing aside will be a step backwards. He will know that he is smarter than any challenger. He will think that he is better than any challenger. He will believe he can win, but most of all he has absolutely nothing else other than politics. Becoming Prime Minister is his reason to exist, so this time he will fight.

UPDATE

YouGov (currently the most accurate based on elections) poll just in from the Telegraph and it shows

It shows that none of the Cabinet ministers who might seriously challenge him would improve Labour's standing with the electorate.

Should be enough to give the Labour MPs second thoughts about backing a Milliband insurgency. The numbers are:

The Tories are on 47 per cent and Labour is on 25 per cent, a 22-point lead that would give Mr Cameron a landslide victory at a general election.

...


With Mr Miliband as leader, Labour scores 24 per cent against 47 per cent for the Conservatives. Under Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, the figures are 24-45.

Were Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, to take over, Labour would fall to 17 per cent, in third place behind the Liberal Democrats on 18 per cent and the Conservatives on 50 per cent.