How Will Gordon Go?

Beleaguered Brown is hanging on by his fingertips as he battles with botched up banks and bonuses. Now the vultures are circling with politicians and commentators eager to throw in their two penneth on how Gordon will go. 

It's no longer a question of if men in grey suits or white coats will come and take him away but when and how. 

That speculation reached fever pitch today with, among others, Trevor Kavanagh capturing the public mood and thundering in the Sun calling for Brown's head after the mess he's caused. The Guardian's Jackie Ashley speculates on how it may all end for the once Great Gordon. And she knows a thing or two about Brown politics.

Brown's gut reaction is to hang on until the bitter end, despite what strategists and polls tell him. Out of touch with reality, sure, but he has a passionate belief in the Party and that could be the key to his future.

The white coat option - to spend more time with his family - is certainly not Brown's style and for him why should it be? He now stands alone thinking he's the man to save the world but think it he does. There has to be a Plan B. 

What is surprising is that it has taken some commentators so long to wake up to the obvious. Brown and his inner Downing Street circle are biding their time and simply mulling over the best time and place for their supreme leader do honourable thing and go. 

Ashley fuels speculation by suggesting Brown may take a job with the IMF as his escape route. That idea is certainly nothing new and indeed was floated by the Orange Party back in October. Politicshome's panel of insiders reckons he's better off jumping into that lifeboat. 

The key lies in the G20 summit in London on April 2. Downing Street and Brown are obsessed by the whole thing and deals are being struck to try to make sure Obama swings round for the photo-op. IMF or not, Downing Street spinners will want him to go out on what they think will be a high, as the disastrous June elections loom on the horizon. 

But it is the question of who would replace Brown that's starting a leadership bid frenzy. And Ashley drops beaming health secretary Alan Johnson's name into the hat without a by-your-leave. 

Place wake up. Of course it's Johnson. That was hinted here by the Orange Party way back in July. He's a working class lad and one of the few cabinet ministers who didn't read PPE at Oxford, preferring instead to read postcodes. Though he'd have a fight on his hands with Harriet Harman.

The battle has always been between the 'old' or true Labour who hadn't a cat in hell's chance of gaining power in the post Thatcher years and the Blairite gang who hijacked the Party for their own selfish ends. But with Blair leading voters into the false Promised Land, why not go along for the ride? 

That could be played out again but with a true Labour man at the helm and an ermine-clad spinner pulling the strings from behind and flying the flag for New Labour. Much would depend on how much Johnson, now a Blairite New Labour prop,  could and would be willing to be manipulated in return for the top job.  

Brown was never ever one of the original gang - just the guy brought in to cook the books with crafty accounting now exposed as a pack of lies and deceit. 

Brown's Party is still the late leader John Smith's Party. And if his parting shot to New Labour is to sail off into the wild blue yonder with a job with his buddies at the IMF, handing the crown over to election vote-winning Johnson, then that noble move would be good for the Party and the country.