Thinktank ponders familiar future

Gordon Brown: Prime minister by 2005?

The return of "old Labour", Tony Blair resigning in 2004 "broken and exhausted" and Gordon Brown taking over as prime minister - one possible version of the future according to a new study.

The scenario begins with Labour winning a reduced but comfortable majority of 60 Commons seats in an early summer election this year.

But confidence is lacking and, attacked by a "revived, more self-assured" Tory party, Labour turns to the "warm familiar ground" of Old Labour

That, according to a pamphlet produced by the rightwing Centre for Policy Studies, will mean higher public spending with an acceptance the country's finances will suffer as a result.

Blair resigns?

Around three years later, in a "dramatic and unexpected" gesture, Mr Blair resigns, "exhausted and seemingly broken by his seven years as Prime Minister".

"He announces that he has no plans to continue in public life and that he will spend more time with his wife and five children."

Gordon Brown takes the helm, pledging to reassert government authority, clamp down on the by now restless middle class and restore prudence to government economic management.

It is all one possible version of the future conjured up by author Robert Tyrell, former head of the Henley Centre for Forecasting.

In between this year's election and Mr Blair stepping down, he paints a dramatic picture.

Return to the old ways?

After dusting off Old Labour rhetoric and slogans, the government targets the medical profession, untamed business interests and the "squireachy".

Mr Tyrell envisions a set piece speech in which Mr Blair tells opponents they had been invited to join his project to modernise Britain "but all you could do was mock us".

London mayor Ken Livingstone, ousted from Labour for running as an independent candidate when he failed to gain the party nomination, is readmited to the fold.

Spin and 'control freakery' are "derided" within the party, which is heard favouring a neo-Marxist view of the world.

The government "surrenders" to fuel protesters, pensioners and public sector workers.

Public expectations increase?

Public expectation and spending spiral upwards together and taxes creep up too.

By 2003, with another election looming, Mr Tyrell ponders deepening economic problems with a government "beleaguered and isolated".

The following year sees strikes, consumer boycotts, demonstrations and "mild acts of mass civil disobedience".

The transport networks are frequently targeted - perhaps indicating how last year's fuel protests were a taste of things to come.

Following Mr Blair's resignation, Mr Tyrell predicts a political landscape which "resembles Italy in the 1970s and people talk of Britain being ungovernable".

More than devolution?

Finally we hear that devolution for Scotland in four years time could have advanced far further than the government ever expected as the process for a complete split is "well in train".

No scenario for Gordon Brown's first general election as prime minister is offered.

The impact of Mr Tyrell's musings may be fear in some and anticipation in others.

But he insists the work is less an exercise in predicting the future and more to stimulate debate, agreement or dissent.