Labour: a government in meltdown

After more than a decade of 'New' Labour, nobody in the party knows what it stands for. And Labour is now heading not for defeat, but for meltdown.

One thing is clear, says Jackie Ashley in The Guardian. "It's over for Gordon." But if it's sad for Brown, it's a "disaster for the Labour government". The real reason for Labour's predicament is that after more than a decade of New Labour, nobody in the party knows what it stands for. Labour is now heading not for defeat, but for "meltdown". Another leader could at least "stem the bleeding and limit the damage".

And if ministers don't act, ordinary Labour MPs are likely to. As one Labour worker put it: being an MP is the "best self-employed job there is: it's like running a small business and you make of it what you want to. But there are now more than 100 small business people whose businesses are going bust with no prospect of good alternative employment. They are the people who will move against Gordon."

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Emily Hohler
Politics editor

Emily has worked as a journalist for more than thirty years and was formerly Assistant Editor of MoneyWeek, which she helped launch in 2000. Prior to this, she was Deputy Features Editor of The Times and a Commissioning Editor for The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph. She has written for most of the national newspapers including The Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail, She interviewed celebrities weekly for The Sunday Telegraph and wrote a regular column for The Evening Standard. As Political Editor of MoneyWeek, Emily has covered subjects from Brexit to the Gaza war.

Aside from her writing, Emily trained as Nutritional Therapist following her son's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes in 2011 and now works as a practitioner for Nature Doc, offering one-to-one consultations and running workshops in Oxfordshire.