Why the plotters failed

The Indy highlights why the coup to unseat Brown failed:

The back-bench plot was even more disorganised. Brown critics failed to learn lessons from the chaotic and abortive coup they launched last summer, which also fizzled out.

On the organisation of the e-mail:

At times, the plotting was farcical. "The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing," one rebel admitted. Under what was dubbed the "hotmail plot", Labour MPs were supposed to put their name to an email calling on Mr Brown to quit and then forward it to other MPs. But many failed to realise this and so it didn't reach as many MPs as it should have done. "We couldn't work out why so few people had seen it," one organiser confessed yesterday.

In the end it came down to the fact that plotters had no strategy:

The rebels were divided over tactics and were still divided yesterday over whether Mr Brown had won a temporary reprieve until the Labour conference in September or is now safe until the general election.

One loyalist said the rebels were never going to succeed because they had "no strategy, no end-game in mind... They wanted Gordon out, but they couldn't agree on anything else"

In reality, the coup was all over because no other Cabinet minister joined Purnell and resigned last Thursday night or on Friday.

This disorganised rabble have now had two failed attempts to unseat Brown.  It would be some achievement if they got their act together by the Autumn.

As one Labour MP told colleagues:

The leadership election after the general election will be much easier to organise. We'll need only seven signatures to force a contest, because that will be 20 per cent of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

The irony of this situation is they will not need to organise a coup, as Brown will resign after he losses the election.

All in all a pathetic show.