A drama of Shakespearean proportions. So much has already been written about the crisis surrounding the British premier that the public might feel like extras in a political soap opera. Shadows, sabotage, trap-setters and would-be regicides are all around – a situation made for a TV story, unfolding as one episode follows another. But appearances deceive. This is neither soap opera nor reality TV, neither docudrama nor second-rate theatre. It’s a profound crisis in one of Europe’s most important governments, and you have to wonder with some concern when British politics will stabilise enough to restore clarity of purpose at home and in the world.
This is my translation from a Thomas Kielinger piece in Die Welt. He's too confident that Brown will fall before the next election because of the abyss facing Labour backbenchers: I think it's likely - I say no more than that - that Brown will still lead Labour then. But this is an interesting German view, focused on the hard political realities and noting the way the Brown crisis is weakening the British government internationally. He also makes the very good point against himself that, if Labour did take the unprecedented step of removing Brown, the pressure for an immediate election to give legitimacy to a second unelected Prime Minister would be intense, and it's the fear of that prospect that may save Brown.
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