The night before, there were rumours that something was afoot with even suggestions of a Cabinet resignation. Tessa Jowell, the Blairite Olympic minister, felt the need to put out a statement, saying: “It isn’t me.”
Lord Mandelson was said to have been in a sulk at the way the Prime Minister was handling the Government’s strategy on reducing the budget deficit but had got over it.
Mr Brown knew before he stood up for PMQs about the Hoon/Hewitt letter, which explained his feisty performance; a poor one would have simply fuelled the rebellion.
Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt denied their call for a secret leadership ballot was an attempted coup d’etat but no-one believed them. Nor would they say how they would vote in a ballot; they did not have to.
Once they had set off their political exocet, the usual suspects -- Charles Clarke, Barry Sheerman and Frank Field -- came out cheering.
However, the majority were horrified. John McFall, the West Dunbartonshire MP, denounced the Hoon/Hewitt call as “a death wish”. Diehard Brownite ministers -- Ed Balls, Shaun Woodward and Nick Brown -- took to the airwaves to back their beleaguered leader.
Yet, curiously, hour passed hour without some Cabinet grandees coming out in fulsome support for the PM. People were asking: where were Jack Straw, Harriet Harman, Lord Mandelson, the Milibands and Alan Johnson? Their reluctance to come forward fuelled suspicions that there was a wobble; that some had had a huddle to see if they should eject Mr Brown.
Even when the big guns finally emerged into the camera’s glow, some of their words were less than effusive. Chancellor Alistair Darling, instead of declaring how his Downing Street chum was a great leader, blandly spoke about concentrating on the business of government.
Two backbenchers suggested the Labour “sisterhood” was the driving force. After Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint left the Government last June, resentment simmered. Ms Jowell’s unprompted statement on Tuesday night might have been made because she thought she had been mixed up with Ms Hewitt.
It was claimed Ms Harman had told Siobhan McDonagh, the anti-Brown rebel, on Tuesday that Ms Hewitt was about to plunge the dagger into Mr Brown’s back. Curious?
Meantime, it was said that, under Labour rules, there was no chance of a secret ballot -- it has to be backed by the party conference -- so that the Hoon/Hewitt bid was simply a crude attempt to flush out a “kill Gordon” reaction from Cabinet colleagues.
Yet their idea was to replace one unelected premier with another unelected premier just months before an election. Unprecedented. It just shows the utter sense of defeatism beating in some Labour breasts.
The fact is that the rebels have been outdone by their own disorganisation. Their one chance came last summer when James Purnell dramatically resigned from the Cabinet, but the delay in anyone following suit meant Lord Mandelson had time to ring round colleagues.
The PM’s spokesman insisted Mr Brown was “relaxed” about the Hoon/Hewitt letter; clearly a euphemism for absolute fury. When the PM turned up at an event last night, he declined to comment but his thunderous face said everything.
Just when the polls were showing signs of closing, just when Mr Cameron had gaffed over tax breaks for married couples and just after Mr Brown had one of his best performances at the despatch box, two former colleagues decide the time was right to try to do him in.
The result? The Tories have a pre-election gift: Labour in disarray and its leader even more wounded than he was before. What’s more, today’s launch of the Prime Minister’s prosperity plan will be overshadowed.
The Hoon/Hewitt attempted coup looks like a disaster, because the one thing voters do not like is a disunited party engaging in pantomime politics.
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