"I cannot see Gordon coming back to the Commons in a few weeks to take on Cameron as leader of the opposition.If that's considered cruel then I think we should go one step further and make the bastard Chancellor. Yep, really. And rub his nose in the mess he's made with the strict instruction: 'You fucked it, so you fix it'. Won't happen, obviously, and of course there's the huge downside of the potential for the incompetent prick to do even more harm, but if staying in the Commons is cruel then I really don't have too much difficulty with a little cruelty being put his way.
"It would be too cruel. I cannot see him wanting to do it and I don't think anyone would try and make him do it."
Better still would be quite a great deal of cruelty sent the way of Mandelsnake.
... Lord Mandelson is understood to want to arrange a "coronation" for Mr Miliband – in order to avoid a "divisive" leadership contest which would also hit Labour hard financially – at a time when party funds have been bled dry by the general election campaign.Yeah, put up a preferred candidate unopposed, what could possibly go wrong? It turned out okay last ti... oh, no, wait.
However, most Labour MPs are thought to want a contest, which would be fought under the auspices of a caretaker leader, the role taken by Margaret Beckett in 1994 following the death of John Smith.Which suggests most of them are brighter than Mandelsnake or have learned a lesson about the potential downside.