Labour camps roll the dice

Analysis
By Nick Assinder
Political correspondent, BBC News website

If Charles Clarke's savage attacks on Gordon Brown were designed to flush him out and even expose him, then to some extent they have worked.

The chancellor has been pushed onto the back foot and is being forced to defend himself against charges that he is unfit to replace Tony Blair as prime minister.

While Mr Brown would prefer to talk about Britishness, his moral compass and inclusive approach to politics, and Labour's renewal under a new generation, he has found himself attempting to prove he is not a control freak with psychological problems.

He has been forced to deny being part of a planned coup against Tony Blair and to welcome a serious, cabinet-level challenge for the leadership - with John Reid and Alan Johnson's names being bandied about.

So, to that extent, Mr Clarke and others of his mind will consider they have achieved their objective. Mr Brown is not necessarily being seen as a shoo-in, and his personal qualities - with the emphasis on personal - are being subjected to close scrutiny.

Difficult strategy

But there are real dangers for the chancellor's enemies in this strategy.

For a start, it gives Mr Brown an excuse to engage in what would normally be seen as blatant leadership campaigning under the cloak of self-defence.

Home Secretary John Reid is also considered leadership material

Instead of retreating back into the Treasury and another of his periods of near-invisibility, the chancellor will be out there explaining precisely why he will be such a great prime minister.

He may have been planning to do that in any case at this time, but it will be difficult for his opponents to claim he is the one destabilising the government when he is simply attempting to counter their assaults on his abilities.

By seeking to ensure there is another leadership candidate, they have also opened up a second front in Labour's civil war.

Ongoing fight

The fevered debate over leadership qualities and the search for a senior Blairite candidate may well serve only to ensure that, far from ending the "madness", the Labour party will continue the sort of public in-fighting that has caused it so much damage over the past week.

Ministers' demands for all sides to 'shut up' look to have fallen on deaf ears Key quotes: Brown

That would be bad enough on its own but, as far as the Blairite camp is concerned, it will also risk adding to the demands for the prime minister to bring it all to an end by resigning much sooner that currently planned.

And that is not what they want - their hope is for a longer period to allow that alternative candidate to come forward and for Mr Brown's shine, they hope, to tarnish.

So, at the moment, ministers' demands for all sides to "shut up" look to have fallen on deaf ears.

And with both Mr Blair and Mr Brown set to appear at the annual TUC conference next week, where there have already been calls for the prime minister to quit soon, there seems no end in sight to the current turmoil.