Holding fire until Friday

There will now be a pause in hostilities, until polls close tonight.

Then the rebels trying to bring down Gordon Brown hope to start a drumbeat of protest, a “softening up exercise” one of them called it.

You will get interviews, newspaper and TV, some more pre-emptive resignations from the government potentially.

Gordon Brown has to decide whether the best way to head that off is to jump in ahead of them and try to lock in colleagues to a new reshuffle or wait, let the rebels do their worst, reshuffle on Monday, in the hope that the rebel drumbeat doesn’t rouse big numbers.

If the coup doesn’t happen, here’s one good reason:

Many Labour MPs think the best a change of leader can offer them is not a victory but a smaller margin of defeat. Many would still lose their seats. Many are quite far shy of pensionable age.

One Labour peer with extensive business experience tells me he has been approached by dozens of Labour MPs – ministers, ex ministers, backbenchers, all asking what their employment chances are like in the private sector.

His responses don’t cheer them up, I hear. If you had the alternative of a wait until May ’10 to face the employment market or Sept 09 – the date many argue a new leader wd have to call an election – wouldn’t you push things as far off as possible?