With friends like these...

The BBC website is leading at the moment on Peter Mandelson, who has urged Labour MPs (I was going to say 'fellow Labour MPs' but of course he's not an MP, he's another unelected idiot who's been parachuted in to wreck our lives) not to sign the letter that's going round urging Brown to resign.

Well done Peter. I can't think of anything more guaranteed to make MPs more likely to sign. Mandelson is hated across most of the Labour party, and particularly on the left. Following Hazel Blears's detonation yesterday, it looks increasingly likely that Brown is toast. If they can get around 80 to 100 MPs to sign that letter (which shouldn't be that difficult), the only question mark is, if Brown digs his heels in and refuses to resign, will a big hitter - the obvious candidate would be Johnson - force a leadership challenge. He can win, now: all he needs is guts.