Labour have had their Black Wednesday moment

In 1992 the Tories under John Major, lost control of economic policy as global speculators moved in and forced the Government to abandon their membership of the ERM. This was dubbed Black Wednesday and was seen as a key moment in the economic and political landscape.

After this date the Tories were on the back foot over the economy and Labour were able to dismiss claims of Tory competence over the economy.

Labour have had their Black Wednesday moment with the realisation that Gordon Brown had removed the 10p rate of tax without appropriate compensation for the losers. Worse was that Gordon Brown claimed that there were no losers, deceiving his party and the electorate. It was only when the Labour backbenchers temporarily found their backbone, that he was forced to admit that there were losers and try to implement some botched compensation measure.

From this day forwards Labour will not be able to claim that they champion the cause of the poor as the 10p rate will be thrown back at them until Gordon leaves office.

Let's be clear here, the Labour party remains above the 10p chaos. Nobody believes that the Labour Party wants to tax the poor, but it seems that Gordon Brown did want to tax the poor and he nearly got away with it.

Labour's only hope now is to dispose of Gordon and try to win back the respect of the voters. The Crewe by-election will be a horror show for Labour, but can they start afresh with a new leader in time to win a general election.