It's worse than we though Jim

It may be the time of the new version of Star Trek at cinemas and IMAX theatres near you. But the cry of this Scot is not aimed at James Tiberius Kirk but James Gordon Brown.

Earlier today I was saying that the Prime Minister was attempting a last ditch throw of the dice in bring Lib Dems into a new cabinet. However, the news is getting worse when he looks at the latest ICM poll. Not since 1987 have Labour been in third place in a nation opinion poll. But with the Tories on 40%, the Lib Dems are on 25% and Labour on 22% in respect to how people would vote in the next general election

A lot of this is down to another question asked in the poll on the issue of MP's expenses. Some 54% think that Labour are most damaged, 13% think the Tories (despite having some of the most bourgeois sounding claims) and 2% the Lib Dems. However, worryingly 25% think that all the three main parties are equally as damaged. Which is either an indication of the way the Telegraph have gone about reporting this or my bias in looking at some of the claims. I do think and have been told by others that the former is more likely the case.

It may well be that we are looking at the death knell of new Labour. It may even be that they may be about to head into a wilderness similar to that which the Liberals drifted into in the 20s. Across Edinburgh and I went from the shore to the south today in campaigning the physical evidence of the party in power was very thin (indeed to me invisible) on the ground and this is the weekend before an election.

There are also rumours of all sorts of ructions within the Labour party across Lothian obviously that is all I am personally aware of. Activists are not active (Kezia excepted). Some MPs I've heard are being cold shouldered by their CLP. I have not seen a single Labour poster up anywhere and I have been in 5 Labour held seats today.

Labour could well be in freefall and I don't know what will happen if Gordon pulls the rip chord or even if he will pull it. There may very well not be a soft landing, although at the moment it doesn't not look like it will be as bad at the Canadian Conservatives in 1993 but things continue to get worse and Gordon goes full term without pulling that rip chord who knows what would happen.