Alpha Male: 1 'Alf a lager: 0

DAVID MILIBAND is an intelligent, likeable guy. But his friends say his flaw becomes evident when he walks into the pub.

Our Foreign Secretary orders half a lager, every time. He stands and sips it like a glass of wine. You may think: So what?

Well, those who want him to run for leader say this sums up his problem. You can’t be PM doing things by halves. And while David definitely wants to succeed Gordon Brown as Labour Party leader, he refuses to have anything to do with a putsch.

He wants someone else to do the assassination, so he can stand back innocently. He’s terrified about being seen as a plotter.

This is why eyes are turning on Jack Straw to knock on the door of No.10 and tell the Dear Leader that the game is up.

Limbo

After losing the ‘safe’ Glasgow East to the SNP, Labour MPs are terrified. It’s a new low in the limbo dance of Brown’s premiership. They are all agreed that they can’t wait another two years. “We risk obliteration, not just defeat,” a former Cabinet member tells me.

Jack the Lad says Cabinet members have come to him, pleading with him to knife Gordon. He says he’s told them to “calm down”.

Nice strategy. While protesting loyalty, he’s letting it be known that he’s the Alpha Male. They’re coming to HIM, not the Millipede.

“Also, Jack resents the idea that he’d do this to clear the way for someone else,” one of his allies tells me. “He’d want to run himself.”

And he’d be richly entitled to. Leadership means not always taking the safe option. It can mean having the balls to risk everything. But yesterday, even Straw was backing down. His aides put out a firm message that he won’t be going to knife Gordo (for now).

So who else would do it? I can confirm that Work & Pensions Secretary James Purnell (my outside bet for the job) won’t run.

He has made his choice. He’ll support his friend Miliband, should the Boy Wonder ever have the cojones to run.

In fact, a long list of Labour talent is getting ready to back young Miliband. And I suspect he’d HALVE the Tory opinion poll lead in an instant. But to get there, he needs to make the move.

“You see, the Labour Party is a nice party,” one senior minister told me. “We like unity, not bloody leadership battles.” That’s how Gordon Brown bullied his way to the top. He assembled a team of street fighters, whom no one dared challenge.

When Team Brown go to the pub, there’s not a half pint to be seen. They stay till closing time, pile into a taxi then head for a karaoke bar.

What makes them so deadly is that they’re up with the sparrows the next morning, ready for Miliband, Straw, whoever.

The Labour Party has fought many battles. It survived Thatcher. And in 1945 it even defeated Winston Churchill.

But now, it’s stumped — for a very simple reason. No one prepared it for Gordon Brown.

FRASER NELSON is also political editor of The Spectator.

MUCH gift giving at Obama’s visit yesterday. Gordon Brown presented the Senator with a pair of silver photo frames for his daughters, while David Cameron handed over a box of CDs (strangely not including Dave’s favourite song, Ernie, The Fastest Milkman In The West).

It’s not immediately clear what the Presidential candidate made of Duffy (pictured here), Radiohead, Lily Allen, Gorrilaz and The Smiths. But it’s a fair bet that our PM can sing all the lyrics to Morrissey’s Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.

WORST YET TO COME..

CAN I offer a reality check to any MP who thinks the economy will get better next year?

Economists at Citibank reckon we’re ALREADY in recession. House prices are plunging faster than the Great Depression. Inflation will hit 5 per cent soon, and stay there for months. Repossessions are soaring.

So, as far as Labour is concerned, things can only get worse.

A STORMY LESSON FROM OLD MAC

I SUSPECT Gordon Brown was hoping to catch a little of the Obama stardust when they met yesterday.

Barack is not just bookies’ favourite for president, but hailed as the reincarnation of John F Kennedy.

Of course, JFK is Brown’s idol. He copies the late president’s speeches even now. And, as an obsessive student of political history, he’ll remember when, as seen on the left, an old Harold Macmillan posed beside a young JFK in 1961, hoping to get some kudos.

Instead, it rammed home to the UK public that their PM was exhausted and destined for electoral defeat.

And Brown is smart enough to realise that, sometimes, the only winning move is to give up playing.

BALLS IN THE AIR

ONE minister isn’t off on his holidays. Schools secretary Ed Balls has to stay and wait for the Sats exams fiasco to unwind. This almighty cock-up is not his fault.

It was Ken Boston, chief of the exams quango, who hired ETS, the company that messed up the markings.

But as government lawyers say Balls can’t fling any blame in anyone’s direction until they renegotiate the FIVE-YEAR contract signed with ETS. All Balls can do is sit dumb and face calls for his resignation.

NELSON'S MANDELLA

IF numbers queen Carol Vorderman seeks a job after leaving Countdown, what about a Treasury special adviser? Mind you, even Jade Goody could point out the obvious: Only tax cuts will get the economy moving again.

NELSON'S GOLLUM

SUFFOLK County Council chief Andrea Hill justifies her £220,000-a-year by saying her job is “high-risk”. An Army private in Afghanistan is paid £19,700 — including a paltry £3,000 warzone bonus. That’s high risk. Council tax is a racket pure and simple.

- THE whinging Department of Health claims the ‘cost’ of drinking is £2.7bn a year. Given that drinkers hand over £8bn a year in alcohol duty, I’d say that bill’s covered.

- WHEN electricity supplier EDF announced a 22% price hike, the news was broken by its chief Eva Eisenschimmel.

Why not its chief spokesman? Well he’s Andrew Brown, brother of our PM.

- GORDON, though, remains full of tricks. Take his plans to ban MPs from second jobs. Then look at our Tory Rich List on pages 24 & 25 and work out which party this would hurt most. Genius.