It might as well rain until September (or maybe November).

I'm not sure quite how many last chances a Prime Minister can hope to enjoy. There's always the old adage about a cat having nine lives I suppose.

If there's a problem for Labour, it's that they've come to realise that settling for a 'coronation' doesn't guarantee a halfway decent leader let alone a great one, and it certainly doesn't guarantee any sort of subsequent loyalty from disaffected MPs, particularly those fearful of imminent unemployment. Brown may be long since dead and buried, but it means that at some point soon Labour will have to turn up not one but two credible candidates if the competition to find a successor is to have any meaning whatever. David Milliband has pretty much ruled himself out already - a Guardian article so short of substance as to be laughable, and then events in Georgia very publicly highlighting his continuing ineffectual performance as Foreign Secretary. There have been many who've been advising Brown to sack him for disloyalty but a canny PM would leave him be. He's in his own hole and he just keeps digging.

Since Jack Straw is a no-hoper of the first order it looks like Alan Johnson is the only realistic opponent for the lady. Bring it on.