Brown's Duty: Lead Labour to Defeat

Just listening to the Saturday edition of Any Questions. Anthony Howard argues that, even after the Glasgow east catastrophe, Brown will stay on as Leader and take Labour into the next election. More, he thinks he has a duty to do so. Labour is heading towards General Election defeat (most probably) and there is no point in tainting a new Leader with electoral defeat (who on earth would want to take over now?). So Brown's duty to the party is to lead it to defeat, then exit, leaving the new chap to take over. This looks like a shrewd analysis to me, the only problem being whether Brown or someone else is best placed to minimise Labour's losses next time.

Postscript:

This morning's Observer takes the opposite view: "Labour's choice may be between ordinary defeat under a new leader and extraordinary devastation under the current one".