"Labour chose to hug Mr Brown close"

This morning brings the shock horror news that the Guardian has come out for the Lib Dems (or the Liberals as Gordon Brown insists on calling them).  With Polly Toynbee on board, did they have much choice?

The leading article highlights the "wrong decision" the Labour party made last year:

Any election is also a judgment about the future as well as a verdict on the past. A year ago, the Guardian argued that Labour should persuade its leader to step down. Shortly afterwards, in spite of polling an abject 15.7% in the European elections, and with four cabinet ministers departing, Labour chose to hug Mr Brown close. It was the wrong decision then, and it is clear, not least after his humiliation in Rochdale this week, that it is the wrong decision now.  The Guardian said a year ago that Mr Brown had failed to articulate a vision, a plan, or an argument for the future. We said that he had become incapable of leading the necessary revolution against the political system that the expenses scandal had triggered. Labour thought differently. It failed to act. It thereby lost the opportunity to renew itself, and is now facing the consequences.