Gordon Clown .Com

After taking a pasting at the polls on Thursday, obtaining a meagre 26% of the popular vote and losing control of the Scottish Parliament, Gordon must be wondering what message the general public are trying to send him. Blair, having promised to serve a full third term, looks set to take the money and run next week, looking forward to having more free time to spend “up George Bush’s arse” in the future, as the BBC suggested on Have I Got News For You. Gordon, meanwhile, is facing virtually no opposition in the leadership contest - most likely because in the next 2 years the job of Prime Minister will undoubtedly become a poison chalice as the chaos caused by his economic mismanagement while in No. 11 begins to unfold.

There can be only one message to take from Thursdays humiliation for Gordon - the public doesn’t want you as Prime Minister, and therefore you must call a general election once you take over as leader of the Labour party. The Tory’s election campaign slogan from 2005 of “vote Blair, get Brown” appears to have come true, and the country at large is lodging its protest vote here and now.

With the polls looking awful, allegations of electoral fraud in Leeds and severe mismanagement of the chaos that has occured concerning the Scottish ballot papers, things aren’t looking too promising for a Brown premiership. The Scotsman highlights Gordon’s difficulties north of the border:

GORDON Brown yesterday suffered a massive personal blow to his status as prime-minister-in-waiting after the party he aspires to lead lost an election in his own backyard.

The Chancellor had played a major role in the Scottish Labour Party campaign, both with repeated public visits, and as a key strategist behind the scenes.

Yesterday’s disastrous result for Labour could set up years of constitutional wrangles for Mr Brown, who is likely to have to fend off attacks from the SNP in Edinburgh.

The message is clear to Gordon - the nation demands an election.

Apparently, Gordon has said that he refuses to work together with the SNP in the Scottish parliament, not withstanding the massive defeat that Labour will almost certainly suffer in the elections on Thursday:

Gordon Brown last night warned Scottish voters that he will find it “impossible” to work as prime minister with a Scottish National party-led government in Edinburgh if its leader, Alex Salmond, refuses to abandon his “dangerous and disastrous” plans for independence.

With Labour facing the prospect of losing an election in Scotland for the first time since 1955 to a hostile coalition in his home base, Mr Brown made an impassioned plea to wavering supporters to “come home to Labour” and head off the separatist threat of a “day one conflict strategy” if the SNP wins on Thursday.

Ladbrokes makes the SNP 1/5 favourites to be the largest party with 46 seats to Labours expected 40, but 65 seats in total are required for a majority, which would leave the SNP free to attempt to construct a deal with either Labour or a collection of other parties including the Lib Dems and Greens.

Mr Brown argued yesterday that a new generation of young Scots voters are much more internationally minded than their elders and not “obsessed with constitutional wrangling”.

A “Labour-led Scottish parliament and a UK Labour government can focus on the No 1 priority, not creating constitutional chaos but building a world-class education system,” he said, refusing to concede the possibility of having to work with Mr Salmond.

Now, what is the likelihood of Gordon having a change of heart after the full reality of Labour’s crushing Scottish defeat becomes clear on Friday morning?

The Times has revealed today that Labour party workers in Leeds are deliberately attempting to rig postal votes by collecting them from voters and selectively posting only the Labour votes.  A Times undercover reporter posing as a Labour volunteer recorded this conversation:

Keith Wakefield, the leader of the Labour group on Leeds city council, drives two students and an undercover reporter to Gipton and Harehills.

Wakefield: So our job, I believe, will be to make sure they have either done it [their postal vote] or we help them…Now the reason why it’s really, really important on this one: the average postal votes for a ward in [the] city is 800 to 1,000, there’s 4,000 postal votes [in Gipton and Harehills]… So it’s make or break…as you know, more people vote through postal than not. If we can get back those votes for Labour we can win this. So it’s really, really important that we chase the votes. I have never known as many postal votes in any election in 20 years.

Student 2: Do you know why it’s so many?

Wakefield: Yes. We can speak amongst friends. It’s very much an Asian, half Asian, half white working-class ward. And er, both, all the parties use the Muslim connections, which probably some people would frown at, and families to get everyone on postal.

Student 1: That’s exactly what we’ve done in our ward.

Wakefield: Oh right yes. So while there is paranoia in the country about the use of Asian voting systems…as we all know, they have a brilliant network; they pass it on; they all want to use the postal.

Wakefield, students and undercover reporter arrive in the car park at the Fairway pub in Gipton and meet Graham Hyde, a Labour councillor. Hyde briefs the group on what to do.

Hyde: Simply, what I want you to do is you knock on the door, say you are from the Labour party…‘Have you received your postal votes?… These are all Labour people. ‘Have you returned it?’ If they give it to you in your hand, you collect it and put it in the postbox…If they haven’t, you say: ‘Have you got your postal vote?’

Wakefield: You’ve got to do it for them.

Hyde: The thing is we want to know who has returned them. And if you are knocking on the door and they have a postal vote and they haven’t done it, ‘Would you like to do it? We’ll put it in the post?’ You have to do it very careful…because they [the opposition or the authorities] are watching everyone.

Wakefield: I know, I know.

Hyde: All these here are postal votes.

Wakefield: All we are doing is chasing the postal… Do you have to seal it [the postal ballot] before posting?

Hyde: Yeah, seal it all up… We also want to check they are voting Labour as well. Yeah? If they are voting Liberal Dem, then don’t offer to put the postal vote in. We’ve found 10 so far out of all those we’ve done in Gipton.

Student 3: ‘Yes, I’ll post that for you!’ [laughs]

Hyde: Yes that’s it, and then it ends up in the toilet [laughs]. I know…Put the postal vote form out of sight, or if you are passing a postbox throw it in it. Don’t get caught with any on you. We are not supposed to collect them.

Student 4: Yes, it’s illegal to collect.

Hyde: Yeah.

Reporter: Is it? Why?

Student 4: It’s illegal to collect, isn’t it?

Hyde: Yes it is, but we’ve done 25% already, so…