Hiding behind the dagger and stabbing with the cloak! This is how Ken Clarke ridiculed the attempted failed coup against Gordon Brown in 2010. The orchestrators of this coup, Labour’s own Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt, lacked both ambition and talent. That is why this coup started with an erroneous and empty email before midnight. That error was corrected later but the time to strike had gone. Ken Clarke was right; Labour should have learnt from the Conservatives to how efficiently hide behind the cloak and stab with the dagger. After all, the latter has transformed this into an art form! So much so that the next victim of this Machiavellian manoeuvre may be Rishi Sunak.

This is not to say that political fatigue, a term that has found universal acclaim and has been the reason for the downfall of many a head of government, hasn’t had a part to play. It has but to a lesser extent. In recent memory, Labour was only in power from 1997 to 2010 and that was the time of Tony Blair’s New Labour! Both sides of that Labour government were buffeted by long-lasting Tory regimes in one form or the other. That is one reason why the sitting government of the day is facing the brunt of the electorate. Thus, adding to the headache of the Sunak administration.

Firstly, if there ever was a sign of political fatigue and which way the wind is blowing is........

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