Brown is not in danger

As if in a seasonal rite, the talk once more in Labour circles is of a coup d'etat. It was like this in July 2008, again in the autumn of that year, returning in June 2009 with a brief flurry in October, and now 2010 begins with yet another round. It means that, one way or another, speculation about Gordon Brown and the Labour leadership first raised in 1992 has been a feature of three consecutive decades.

There are mutterings this time of a letter yet another one circulated by a former Cabinet minister, to be sent to Tony Lloyd, chairman of the parliamentary Labour party, demanding a secret ballot on the leadership. Even if that comes to nothing, there are plenty at the top who are desperate to see Brown gone, the prospect of a long chilly winter ending in a springtime defeat too much to bear. One senior Cabinet minister admits that the next election is as good as lost, but that under Brown what would otherwise be a narrow defeat will be converted into a walloping that could take 20 years to reverse. "It's a complete disaster," he says, his voice rising.

In which case, why don't they get rid of him? What exactly is holding Labour back? Plenty of commentators believe the only explanation is a collective deathwish, a lemming mentality that is one part stupidity, one part delusion and three parts cowardice. The only reason Labour is not shoving Brown from the nearest top-floor window is that it lacks the nerve to save its own skin.

That's appealingly simple but misses the full picture.

Start with the most obvious restraint on action. Even if there is a silent majority in the Cabinet that would favour Brown's departure and the unbending loyalists to the prime minister can be counted on the fingers of one hand there is no such majority for any replacement. Alan Johnson was once mooted as a unity candidate, but his stock has fallen. As so often, the Home Office has proved to be ambition's graveyard, and rows with scientific adviser David Nutt and over the extradition of hacker Gary McKinnon have dented his support. Besides, says one colleague, he doesn't seem to have the "hunger" either to get the top job or to do it.

Others have transferred their affections to David Miliband, who has won admiration in recent months for his sustained attack on the Tories over their links to ultra-nationalist fringe parties in Europe. Trouble is, few believe he could step gracefully into No 10 with the Cabinet united behind him. While, say, Ed Balls might have been prepared to defer to Johnson, he tells friends that he will not make way for a generational peer: Balls would challenge Miliband in an open contest.

Frightening prospect

That makes those ministers who once fantasised about a cosy, bloodless coronation — ditching Brown on Monday with a new face in place on Tuesday think twice: they have to face the prospect of a long, brutal internal battle, played out months before a general election. "That would be a sure way to lose," says one minister who always used to be identified as an arch-Blairite.

Still, this could be overcome if there were not a clash between what Brown's critics perceive as Labour's collective interest a change of leader and their own personal interests. Some Cabinet ministers want Brown gone but fear that if they strike they will fall foul of Heseltine's law, which declares that the assassin never becomes the king. Others can see that Labour's electoral hopes might be boosted by a change now, yet calculate that their own leadership chances would be stronger after a general election than before it. So they do nothing.

Similar ambivalence holds back even the most venomous Brown-haters. One former Cabinet minister told me that it would be better in the long term for Brown to be allowed to fight an election and lose it horribly. That way, Brownism would be buried forever. If Brown was toppled before an election, say these anti-Brownites, the former PM and his allies would remain a sullen, resentful faction, sabotaging any future leader for years to come.

There are other, less subtle obstacles in the way of a coup. For one thing, there is no clear ideological drive to oust Brown: his opponents want him out because they fear he is a loser, not because they have an alternative programme. Relatedly, there is no cabal or machine in position, agitating to push Brown out. Tony Blair faced such an operation, in the form of the Brown camp who, one minister reports, were so well-organised they used to speak in a weekly conference call every Sunday at 4pm. There is no Johnson, Harman or Miliband machine that even comes close.

One last thing holds Labour back. Even those who were once his enemies say that he is still the biggest figure on the stage.

None of this makes a coup impossible; politics is unpredictable and can change fast. But if it doesn't happen, it won't solely be a lack of guts it will be that Labour's powerbrokers were caught in a series of webs of their own making.