Greetings, Guido readers.

Back in late 2005 Guardian prima columnista Polly Toynbee was urging the case for Gordon Brown to replace Tony Blair:

From now on, the economy will turn upwards and there is no need for Labour to panic – yet, of course, they will. Faced with bad polls, there will be growing pressure for Blair to announce his departure by next autumn’s party conference.

… Labour’s man needs to arrive as fresh, surprising and progressive as Cameron now seems. People worry how this puritanical and somewhat dour chancellor can stand up against the ebullient, debonair young prince. But age and style have nothing to do with it. It is the brightness and the content of their policies that matters.

And, lo, in 2007 it came to pass that Gordon Brown was poised to become Prime Minister:

A 10-year chancellor must leap out of the starting gate like a fresh contender. He must electrify the stale air with new ideas and new directions strong enough to reach right down to these jaded roots. That takes high voltage jolts of surprise and optimism.

Then, it happened!

There was something stunned about Gordon Brown’s expression as he stood on the threshold of No 10. He looked genuinely awestruck, as if the hugeness of the weight that had just fallen on his shoulders had taken him by surprise.

Mere weeks later it was all going wrong:

There is a stunned disorientation among Labour MPs, alarmed by both Brown’s vision void and his sudden incompetence … The backbenches sat through Darling’s politics-free performance on Tuesday like the Animal Farm beasts gazing through the farmer’s window in the final scene. Far too late they realised something awful was happening before their eyes: you could have cut their silence with a knife.

Then it was all down:

Maybe he hasn’t the character, the toughness, the fibre, the daring. He was always the Macbeth who failed to wield the knife. In those waiting, plotting years of half-cocked conspiracies, a Lady Macbeth would often have shouted: "Infirm of purpose!"

And down:

A year ago, this week’s cornucopia of good policies would have signalled the truth of Gordon Brown’s words as he stood outside Downing Street and said: "Let the change begin." If these had been his opening salvos, if these had signalled his clear direction of travel, he might not now be sinking fast … Now it is late, a whole year too late. Is anyone still listening?

Which brings us to today:

The smell of death around this government is so overpowering it seems to have anaesthetised them all. One bungle follows another and yet those about to die sit silently by…

Unseating a prime minister is very high risk – but a dying party should be ready to take dangerous medicine if that’s the last chance left.

On 29 June 2007: as they stepped into No 10 yesterday, here was as decent and clever a team of ministers as ever graced the cabinet table.

Now they are … a cabinet of minnows.

It’s tough being a cheer-leader, waving those glittery pom-poms and smiling brightly as your team collapses and the crowd laughs both at the players – and at you.

Update: a reader writes that I missed a peach from December 2006. He’s right. I did. So let’s add it:

Twice a year Gordon Brown fills his party’s sails with pride. His tornado of facts and figures magics up images of untold national wealth and success. Sixty per cent more personal wealth! Most chancellors sound as if chunks of their speech are penned by officials, not quite convincing in their grasp of macro or micro details. But here is the man who studies everything, consuming documents with the speed of a shredder. Standing at the dispatch box, the towering superiority of his brain makes intellectual pygmies of his opponents.

Ha. Worth also pointing out that some Prime Ministers want you to believe that shoddywork appearing under their name has been penned by officials?