I’ve long held the view, HERE, that Gordon Brown would hang on till May 2010.

Even David Milliband’s political ambitions didn’t persuade me that Gordon Brown would be ousted before the latest time for a general election.

My view was that if Labour dumped their Prime Minister, then they’d surely have to call an general election, which they’d undoubtedly lose. So the argument goes, why would they do that. Of course they wouldn’t.

But, Charles Clarke’s article HERE in the New Statesman, I believe, changes the scenario.

In his article he says devastatingly,

“…Labour’s current course will lead to utter destruction at the next general election.”

“There is, however, a deep and widely shared concern – which does not derive from ideology – that Labour is destined to disaster if we go on as we are…”

Ok, so what’s new here that hasn’t been said earlier this year. Well, after a quiet August and early September, without any major rumblings about deposing Gordon, this is portentous stuff. For it seems to me to point to the annihilation of Labour at the next election. And so the argument goes this time, it must be better to suffer a defeat and then rebuild, rather than suffer a total wipe-out from which there may be no return for the Labour Party.

That’s why I think Gordon will be gone in six months, and the general election will probably be in early May 2009.

I’m not alone in thinking this. Philip Johnston in the Daily Telegraph thinks so. The BBC’s Nick Robinson, and Ben Broganthink that some-thing’s up this time.

It’s going to be a stormy conference season.