Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

... is not just one of the Smiths' greatest singles, but an accurate statement.

This has to be the worst week I've experienced in politics since the 1992 election.

How has anybody been helped by a series of events that culminated in the public humiliation of the man who just won us a third General Election?

We've probably lost ourselves the next election and put the Tories in for a generation.

We've split the right of the Labour Party and set friend against friend and ally against ally.

The knife has been wielded not by Blair's ideological critics on the Hard Left, or even the Compassite element of Brown's support, but by people who share 95% of his politics.

Gordon Brown, having carefully tried to create a position where he would be the unity candidate of the centre and right of the Party, challenged only by John McDonnell, has now made it almost inevitable that he will face a bruising leadership fight with a more Blair-friendly candidate, and has reduced his own reputation with party members and the wider electorate.

If the only consequence of this would be a few MPs having their careers truncated or losing their ministerial limos in would be sad but not disastrous.

The fact that it means there is more chance that the millions of people who need a Labour Government so that they get decent schools, hospitals, policing, housing and jobs may end up suffering years of misery under the Tories makes it a tragedy.