Why Labour's future is black, not Brown

No party has ever dug itself out of a hole as deep as the one Labour is in now to win an election. But will the demise of Labour also mean the demise of the union of England and Scotland?

The fall of Wendy Alexander, the leader of Scottish Labour, echoes a wider collapse in the party's fortunes and presages a "truly terrible summer" for Gordon Brown north of the border, said The Independent. The battle to succeed Alexander is likely to be "bloody and divisive" as the competing candidates are forced to revisit her controversial decision to endorse a referendum on independence, and a Glasgow by-election defeat threatens following the resignation of MP David Marshall on health grounds.

After Labour's "long death-march to Henley cemetery last week", where Labour was beaten into fifth place, it's "plain that the future isn't Brown; it's black", said Johann Hari in The Independent. "No party has ever heaved itself out of a grave this deep in just two years." It's time to sack him or back him, said Jackie Ashley in The Guardian. Brown has an "inner stoicism that repels the tempest of abuse", but his party seem "clinically depressed".

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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.