British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a nervy fellow, is known for chewing his fingernails. The way his fortunes have been faring of late, it is a wonder he has not beaver-gnawed his hands down to two bleeding stumps.
Mr. Brown, who took over from Tony Blair two years ago without a general election, has been through a hellish few days. Several members of his government have quit, some making angry remarks about Mr. Brown's personal failings.
One accused him of "ruling by smear," another of being a sexist who had only ever wanted her in his Cabinet to act as "window dressing." (As it happens, the woman in question recently posed--in clothes--for a Sunday newspaper.) A third former minister called the PM "inept" and said that he was a certain election loser.
All of which might explain why a frazzled Mr. Brown managed to go and goof at the D-Day anniversary in France, where he spoke of the historic landings on "Obama Beach." How is President Omaha getting on, by the way?
At the same time as these criticisms of his premiership were being voiced, Brown's Labour party was thumped in a European Parliament election.
European elections are not the most important things. Few of us can name our MEPs (Members of the European Parliament). The five-yearly elections can, however, indicate the way the electorate's sympathies are running.
Things went so badly that Labour was beaten in its two unofficial client countries, Scotland and Wales. That's almost like the late Saddam Hussein losing an election in Tikrit.
In the European poll, Labour earned a mere 15.3% share of the vote. Unless things improve quickly, Labour is looking at a spanking in the next general election, which has to be held by June 2010.
Mr. Brown, who is reputed to fly into such temper tantrums that he shatters cellphones by hurling them at the walls of 10 Downing Street, has seldom looked comfortable as Prime Minister. The fingernail chewer is a leaden personality, ill at ease in front of strangers and TV cameras. He is not very good at forced smiles. He finds small talk agonizing. He dislikes dressing smartly every day, does not always remember to wash his hair and has surrounded himself with a cabal of knuckle-crackers and gonad-crunchers who would not be out of place in a mafia movie.
Why, you ask, did such a man enter modern Western politics? Good question!
His latest difficulties started a week ago when word leaked out that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (interior minister, if you like) was quitting the Cabinet after a string of controversies. These included her claiming the cost of her husband's blue movies as an expense. We may no longer have an empire, but we Brits still rule the world when it comes to excruciating political scandals.
Ms. Smith's resignation news started a run on the Brown bank. Two other senior Labour figures quit that day. Within half a day, another female Cabinet minister, Hazel Blears, resigned unexpectedly, just two hours before Mr. Brown had to face the House of Commons for his weekly question time.
Mr. Brown had been hoping to sack Miss Blears, but she had beaten him to it and sacked herself. Maddening. One of the pleasures of being Prime Minister is sacking the treacherous incompetents who adhere themselves to your court. A PM who is not in charge of his own ministerial reshuffle is not a mighty PM.
Mr. Brown was already weakened by Britain's month-long parliamentary expenses scandal, not to mention some rotten opinion poll figures. He was now looking powerless and the voters seem to have realized. Labour did not even come second in the European election result. No, it came in third, beaten by both the Conservatives and the United Kingdom Independence Party, a group of trouser-flapping eccentrics who bear more than a passing resemblance to a convention of Star Trek enthusiasts (if the Trekkies will forgive me).
With the Prime Minister looking weak, other senior colleagues started to bail out of his Cabinet. Most of them were friends or allies of Mr. Blair. And one of them even quit in the middle of a live-televised press conference Mr. Brown was giving at No. 10--a building now widely referred to as "the bunker."
The ministerial gaps have not been easy to fill, and Mr. Brown has had to make some strange selections. The new Defense Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, could easily pass muster as a regimental chauffeur (though not a terribly bright one). Mr. Brown has also had to give a job to Glenys Kinnock, wife of garrulous former Labour leader Neil Kinnock. Lady Kinnock is used to windbag losers, so she should feel right at home.
Westminster is in more of a frenzy than I have known at any time since the downfall of Margaret Thatcher 20 years ago. So far Mr. Brown has survived by threatening to call a general election unless Labour MPs stop undermining him.
If there is one thing that rules the heart of a politician, it is animal self-interest. They know that they could lose such an election heavily. But they also suspect that unless they change leaders, they are doomed. What a bitter dilemma.
Things have become so bad that we political reporters have been on "corridor watch." This happens when one of the political parties is going through a leadership crisis and holds internal meetings off the long, wood-paneled House of Commons committee-room corridor.
During the Blair years, "corridor watch" occurred at frequent intervals as the opposition Conservatives tried (sometimes successfully) to assassinate one another's careers during leadership elections. Serial disloyalty and plotting set in, and the Conservatives turned into a disreputable rabble. At last they have sorted themselves out and found a young, saleable leader in David Cameron.
Now the leadership-crisis malaise has started happening to Labour. The civil war could last for years.
Quentin Letts is political sketch writer and theater critic for London's Daily Mail newspaper. A former New York bureau chief for the London Times, he is the author of Fifty People Who Buggered Up Britain, a series of vituperative torpedoes aimed at Britain's political and cultural elite. He writes a weekly column for Forbes.
