The vultures are circling...

I wasn't born the last time Labour lost power in a UK General Election, remembering which seems to be all the rage at the moment - given this year marks the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Election that brought Margaret Thatcher to power.

I do, however, have a vague recollection of a November day in 1990 when Margaret Thatcher's time in office expired and she resigned as Prime Minister to be replaced by John Major. I say vague - I was six. I remember much more about the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, but that is another story.

As a student of politics though, I've read a number of accounts of Thatcher's downfall. You can watch a three-part documentary on her downfall on YouTube as well. Its an interesting watch.

I was thinking about how that situation parallels with the current one. While Gordon Brown has managed to keep his Cabinet together (for now) backbench MPs are queueing up to kick the government.

Charles Clarke said "There have been things that have been done recently which have made me feel ashamed to be a Labour Member of Parliament."

Stephen Byers, David Blunkett, Tony Blair and others have lined up in opposition to policies recently delivered by the Brown Government. An un-named backbencher with a marginal seat spoke out too - "The man has lost his authority – he's had a charisma bypass."

While no one at Cabinet or sub-Cabinet level has yet spoken out, the knives are out and a leadership challenge looks inevitable. The only question is who will it be?

Michael Portillo says it well in the first part of that piece:

"Nothing is more dangerous than a panicking backbencher."

Quite

UPDATE: The Telegraph says Cabinet Ministers are starting to question the PM, that he's losing control of MPs. One went as far as saying "It's all so reminicent of the last months of John Major. So maybe I got the "the end is nigh" stuff right... I just picked the wrong Tory downfall as my evidence...