"On exactly what question of principle was Labour brought so low? If you can’t answer that question, you are in good company. The main if not the sole “issue” appears to be the self-love and the self-pity of a prime minister—Gordon Brown—who has never won a general election or even a contested leadership election within his own party. He is in power only in order to be in power. He is in power only because he believes he has long had a natural right to be prime minister. For many years he waited as a resentful dauphin, swallowing his envy and bile. And then, like the fruit of the medlar tree, he went rotten before he was ripe."
"Fat Boy McBride, of course, was given the heave-ho as soon as his picknose activity was unmasked, and it was claimed, as is customary, that he had acted alone and without permission from his boss. I have asked around a good deal and have not met or heard from anyone—anyone—who believes that this cover story is true. Instead, and this in a party that used to pride itself on open debate, you hear dreadful whispers about carpet-biting, furniture-hurling spasms by someone whose contorted face reproduces the awful slobbering mask of a weak king."
Read the whole thing in Vanity Fair.