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Britain's beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his increasingly panicky Labour Party might have thought they bottomed out earlier this month, when the party lost the London mayoralty and suffered its most disastrous municipal election result across the country in decades. But yesterday it got even worse. The resurgent Conservatives stomped to victory in a by-election in Crewe, a working-class town in northwestern England that has been an unsinkable Labour bastion since World War II. The sheer size of the victory - 17.6% of the electorate switched from Labour to Tory since the last election...
...with no British general election mandated for two more years, Cameron has little say about whether it's time for Brown to go. The Prime Minister's more immediate threat is from restless Labourites keen to vault the party out of the hapless political rut it has inhabited since Brown decided not to call snap elections last fall...
...Westminster palace coup is by no means an easy feat, nor a likely one. Complex Labour Party rules and regulations specify that a leadership contest can only happen if the Prime Minister quits or is challenged. There is no indication that Brown is ready to quit. A successful challenger would need the backing of 20% of Labour MPs (at least 71 on current standings). That is a hard number to attain even in the current climate. And even if a challenger emerged, it would fall to the Labour Party Conference in the autumn to decide, by a public vote...
...pretend this hasn't been a enormous blow for the Labour Party," says Labour MP Stephen Pound of the Crewe result. "But we're not going to turn it round by defenestrating our leader, or trying to go downmarket after the Tory vote. To get rid of the Prime Minister would simply underline any accusations of division in the party and utterly guarantee we would lose the next election." Hardly a ringing endorsement, but perhaps an indication that for better or worse, Brown could have more months or even years of torment ahead at 10 Downing Street. With reporting...
...allies abroad is very different. As he often does on such trips, Bush held one-on-one talks with key leaders on his recent trip, during which aides were asked to leave the room and particularly sensitive matters were discussed. After a similar one-on-one last January, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was asked at a press conference with Bush whether the American leader's "hands were tied" when it came to Iran. Olmert said his impression after talks with Bush was that the President is "exceptionally determined," and that "he has proven this throughout his term in office...