Is Ed too young?

So Ed Miliband is the leader of the Labour Party just five years after he entered the House of Commons. If David Cameron calls a general election in 2009 rather than the following year, Ed Miliband could become Prime Minister just nine years after he became an MP.

By coincidence, David Cameron moved into Number 10 nine years after he became an MP.

We are now ruled by a political elite that have never had a proper job in their lives (I exclude David Cameron's stint as PR for Carlton TV) and are getting younger and younger. Surely, those who seek to govern us should have had some experience of life before getting their hands on power or at least have a dozen or more years of being a back bencher before moving into government.

I have been looking back over the most recent PMs.

Gordon Brown was an MP for 24 years before he became PM.
Tony Blair had 14 years' experience.
John Major was an MP for 11 years before entering Number 10.
Margaret Thatcher had 20 years as an MP.
Jim Callaghan waited 26 years before becoming PM.
Harold Wilson took 19 years to climb the greasy pole.
Alec Douglas-Home took 33 years between becoming an MP and becoming Prime Minister but his spell was interrupted by going to the Upper House.
Harold Macmillan also spent 33 years before he moved into Number 10.

Some of these were good premiers and some bad but they all had 10 or more years learning the ropes. Our future politicians should take note...

Gordon Brown - The Sunny Jim Of Our Time

Today The Daily Telegraph is running a story that Tony Blair is likely to resign on Tuesday.

Apparently, he will go in an attempt to limit the expected electoral damage in next Thursday's local elections.

The story goes on: "Even Mr Blair's most loyal supporters concede his unpopularity is so deep that his resignation could actually improve the party's showing, particularly in Scotland which Labour may lose control to the nationalists.

"The move could also wrongfoot his opponents and even cushion any political fallout for Gordon Brown if, as expected, there is a rout of Labour in the chancellor's Scottish backyard."

However, I believe that whenever he goes - next Tuesday, next month, after the summer - that it is all over for Gordon Brown.

If - as expected - Brown does become PM he should call an immediate general election (as should have Jim Callaghan in 1976, and John Major in 1990): he has no mandate to govern.

I can tell you now that Brown won't call an election. He will claim that he has to have time to "bed in" to show the electorate what he is like.

That's the problem - what he is like.

Frankly, Gordon Brown comes over if not "psychologically flawed", then certainly as a bit peculiar.

Lord Turnbull, the Permanent Secretary at the Treasury from 1988 to 2002, who can claim to know Brown well, said that he had a "very cynical view of mankind and his colleagues... He cannot allow them any serious discussion about priorities. His view is that it is just not worth it and ‘they will get what I decide’. And that is a very insulting process You can choose whether you are impressed or depressed by that but you cannot help admire the sheer Stalinist ruthlessness."

Brown has two choices: go to the country when Blair resigns to get his own mandate (and lose); or hang on until 2010 and lose then.

Either way, he will be seen as the Sunny Jim of our time.