Wait a sec. Who bullied whom into submission?

For all the naive talk of Brown's boys and their bullying and arm twisting, Gordon Brown is now his Party's hostage. And whichever way you cut it, now it's shit or bust till election day.

It's not Gordon. It's the policies, d'you see? So let's draw a line, unite behind the leader (wake up at the back) and have some nice new policies. No distractions like leadership contests or general elections, for God's sake.

"Certainly," says Gordon with suspicious alacrity, in his soft but firm new voice. Smiling. "Absolutely. New policies all round. Exactly what I was about to propose. Anything you like. As long as I can stay Prime Minister with the big car, country house, flunkeys, lots of big policemen and red carpets wherever I go, etc. And the power, of course. Well, some power. Just a little... Well, the title. Deal? OK. Deal."

The Labour Left sees this crisis of Prime Ministerial ineptitude and failed leadership as their last and best opportunity since 1994. They have their party leader captive. In the last months of their time in office he must do their bidding or depart in ignominy.

They want Post Office privatisation scrapped - and sod the viability of the business. And sod the EU. "Certainly. There will be some tricky negotiations but I'll get right on to it."

The back room rows will require huge shipments from Nokia. The rows with Brussels will run up to and beyond the date of the next election, the only event on the Labour PLP's calendar - and it's not for a good while yet. And let the Prince of Fucking Darkness earn his sodding corn and take on les Commissars. He spent long enough drinking champagne with them. He wants a big job? Well, there's one.

They want scorched earth, left-wing spending from Chancellor Darling and sod the cost. That will fuck the Bullingdon bastards who will have to spend their term of office wading through a swampfull of shit and end up being hated more than Thatcher. The electorate are such stupid fuckers. They won't remember whose fault it was...

They want an Old Labour Queen's Speech. Or else. The delusional bastards honestly believe that it would make them more electable come May 2010.

(No, don't. Really, don't.)

So tonight they demanded changes of policy as their price for not changing the man. In addition, they insist that a middle-aged, life-long misogynist start being a ladies' man. They want a lifelong cabalist to become a consensus man overnight. That he stop plotting and smearing after a lifetime of using no other language, no other methods, knowing nothing else.

Brown said yes.

Did he even understand the concepts? Was he in genuine dialogue with them, or merely calculating what he needed to do and say in order to survive win this round in the game?

The Labour PLP should not make the fatal error of believing Brown means it, even if he were capable of changing any of it.

Like them, Brown knows he's finished come the election. He, too, has only one event on his calendar. He, too, wants just to survive until May 2010. Nothing more. That's it. Whatever he has to say, he will say. Now as never before is the time for a meaningless gesture or two.

He's lying. They know he's lying. He knows they know and they know he knows.

They're all in it together. Brown saves face and his job, and the backbenchers get another year of troughing and merrily yelling abuse at the wicked Conservatives from their comfy seats on the green benches before they have to go out and find work. And until then, they will have a ball and salve their little marxoid consciences by building what they intend shall be Cameron's funeral pyre.

And now it's over to Voldemort to try to convince the electorate that of course leopards change their spots. It's a well-known fact, that. And pigs can fly. And it's on to a fourth victory starting from the lowest point ever in the history of the Labour Party.

And when Brown does not change because he cannot... and when the policy changes do not materialise because Darling and the IMF and the EU and the capital markets will fight back against his weakness... and when the polls continue to augur badly... and when his enemies finally find a pair, take a deep breath and strap them on... then... something else will happen.

Tonight, Brown will heave a sigh of relief and make himself believe he's done it. Tomorrow, he will wake up shaking with fear. And his anger, when the scale of his humiliation dawns on him, will be awesome. It'll be a brave man (or woman) who gets in the way of New Gordon over the next few days.