Media pundits like to give new political leaders "100 days" to prove themselves -to gain the momentum necessary for lift-off in their period of office.
Well Brown has had his 100 days, and his wheels fell off on the runway. Initially Labour seemed to emerge unscathed trom years of personalised faction fighting between Blair and Brown. Brown tine-tuned his pitch to Blairite middle England and the Blairites swung behind him at the eleventh hour. Apparently overwhelming backing from MPs then helped launch a smooth hand-over. "External events" - flooding, terrorism and banking crises - allowed spin doctors to puff Brown up as a safe honesty of political game playing. looming bad news on the economy were the alternative if Brown waited longer. Apparent Tory disarray was the icing on the cake.
But all it took was a hamfisted Brown media stunt in Irag and a united Tory party conference tactically repositioning to the populist right - particularly on tax - for Labour's poll lead to collapse. The that never was, was called off in a personally humiliating Uturn for Brown, from which he may never recover.
Brown wasn't just caught out playing political games and losing them. He dug himself in deeper by a series of lying justifications for the mess. His attempt to blame it on junior acolytes, fatally late decision or claiming he was never seritime. The search for a replacement will start before long. quiet desperation of the party to retain power than any enthusiasm for this new leader.
He is thoroughly implicated in all that was hated about the past and has no new programme or perspective.
The Calendes of the Brown entourage for a snap election and to surround themselves by Tories and businessmen showed they fully realised this. But he was playing a Tory game, and Cameron - despite his lack of substance and his party's divisions - quickly outmanoeuvred Labour.
New Labour had a narrow window of opportunity to relaunch itself - by jettisoning Blair, playing up the tail-end of an economic boom and purporting to parthat free market capitalism could be harnessed to a reform agenda promising mild redistribution and welfarism fell asunder on the rocks of a decade of rampant profiteering, escalating inequality, public services in crisis and unrestrained warmongering.
This seismic shift has caused a reshuffling of all the political cards. The Lib Dems, suffering a bruising slide down to 11%, have kicked out their second leader in 18 months.
Campbell's departure was no more only about his age than Kennedy's was only about alcohol. Campbell's shift to the right was too tentative. The party looked like it hadn't a clue where to position itself. Both likely replacements, Huhne and have been wrong-footed. the Tories, quick to orient to Labour's underlying crisis, are enjoying their highest poll ratings in 15 years
With the next election now 2009 or later, the news can only get worse for Labour. Within hours of Brown's election U-turn, the internal sniping started, and is likely to continue. Brown will look somewhat shop-soiled in two years time. The search for a replacement will start before long.
The rumbling economic depression has a capacity to annihilate Brown's only real calling card - economic strength and "an end to boom and bust".
Leading economists put the odds of the USA going into recession at 50:50. Britain is particularly vulnerable given the size of the financial services sector, with a growing budget deficit and weak growth.