Why bother with the New Statesman?

Occasionally, it is good to remember the pre-Blair days that belonged to Kingsley Martin, Anthony Howard and Alan Watkins.  Two editors and a political correspondent that made the New Statesman required reading..

Today, the magazine is hardly worth bothering with.  Take two examples form today’s edition.  Not only this nonsense, but also this.

However, there some quotes that stand out:

Your generation will now have to put up with a Tory government for the next decade.  You continue to do down Labour's best ever leader and instead push Gordon Brown on the rest of us . . . Gordon can't win.

And:

The more the public see of Brown in the campaign, the more they'll dislike him.  I predict a Tory majority of around 40

Just who is that man saying Gordon can’t win and Cameron will win by 40 seats?  Thought so.

The article concludes:

Whether Blair's followers like it or not, Gordon Brown, newly emboldened, remains leader of the Labour Party. To cheer for Labour is to cheer for Brown, even if through gritted teeth. There is no going back and there is - to borrow a phrase from a Tory premier - no alternative.

Oh yes there is and party still has time, just.

And now back to that man:

I regard the likely outcome of the election as a setback for the country. But I am not going to say that Brown can win if that is not what I think: I am an observer not a politician. Of course, I do not pretend that much of what I write is helpful to Brown and - given that the party has failed to replace him - to the party as a whole.

Well said.