It’s been decided. Gordon must go … painfully.

Such is the extent of his crimes against humanity, the nation, the planet, and especially the Labour Party, the biggest jury ever assembled has decreed he must suffer death by a thousand cuts.

Even the political commentators — who are finding it hard to reinterpret the death throes of this man’s career in new and original ways — were virtually unanimous this weekend on his ultimate fate. Only one that I read put up a lukewarm defence: Peter Oborne in Saturday’s Mail. But there was something weary and attenuated about his piece.

For a more red-blooded approach “Pollygate” takes some beating. The Guardian’s Pollygamous lapdancing correspondent (if Richard Littlejohn is to be believed) was immortalized by parliamentary round-robin, when her extended version of the last rites was circulated by email to every sitting Labour MP. Imagine opening an email and discovering a thousand words by Polly Toynbee on your BlackBerry. Spam doesn’t begin to cover it.

Over at its sister paper, The Observer, Andrew Rawnsley patrolled his now familiar beat, Gordon must go … Oh, the tedium of it.

Turning right into the Telegraph offices, even Gordon’s editor for his new book on “Britishness” (Heaven preserve us!), Matthew d’Ancona, gave the old screw another twist, albeit with just a modicum of concern. Heads and brick walls, Matthew.

Melanie Phillips takes up the baton in this morning’s Mail. It’s a war of attrition now. “The strategy is to undermine Brown by withdrawing support on the Labour benches to such an extent that ministers have no alternative but to wield the knife upon the stricken Prime Minister, and put him and the party out of their misery. … [T]he public is simply sick to death of the whole lot of them.”

The Grim Reaper, it seems, in the person of creepy John Reid, who could teach Vladimir Putin a thing or two, is hovering in the background like a Glaswegian Brutus. He may even decide to stand against Brown. What, another Scotsman? He wouldn’t pass the Paxo Test.

This whole scenario is taking on the form of one of Shakespeare’s more gruesome theatrical extravaganzas. Maybe the party should hire Trevor Nunn as a directorial consultant and be done with it.

In keeping with the theatre noir mood music, Peter McKay talks of Viking funerals, and paraphrases the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Gordon thought he could reap Tony’s seed, keep his wealth, wear the robes he’d weaved and bear the arms he’d forged.”

Not so sure about Tony’s seed though.

Back at the now intensely compelling Guardian, Andrew Marr’s missus Jackie Ashley writes, “The Labour party could be on the verge of destruction. Out of money, and facing an electoral smash and a massive factional fallout, it may not survive as a major political force.”

On Gordon himself she reports, “In private he brims with enthusiasm about child poverty, perinatal mortality in Sierra Leone, and the impact of rising food prices in China.”

Perinatal mortality in Sierra Leone? Says it all, doesn’t it? Out of the mouths of babes and Guardian columnists …

The ever-dependable William Rees-Mogg in The Times has, “Labour’s best hope lies with the Palin effect. Gordon Brown is guilty of boring the nation. His party should look to its women to make itself interesting again.”

But where is a Sarah Palin in the massed ranks of Labour wimmin? The Blair babes are like Gordon, ideological nutcases and social engineers working on the principle that they know best how the rest of us should live, despite the deficiencies in their own lives.

Sarah Palin speaks from real experience learned in the harshest of environments. By contrast, Labour females have the odour of insipid British local government hung about them.

Rees-Mogg revisits his championing of Harriet Harman — Labour’s Hillary — but also adds Ruth Kelly to his shortlist who would swing a bit of interest back towards the Labour Party. I agree, but in both cases it would be accompanied by national derision.

The unsmiling Harman is too frosty and way too feminist, while newly-glamorized Ruth Kelly has a most unfortunate accent that drains her presence of seriousness. An election campaign filled with her drone and Labour’s cacophony of glottal stops would drive us all potty.

Sarah Palin is the nearest America has come to finding a Margaret Thatcher. She explodes onto a stage and holds her audience by the force of her personality and the “wow” effect when she articulates positions that resonate naturally in the minds of her listeners.

She probably reminds Americans of Mark Twain and Henry David Thoreau who spoke with folksy common sense in an aura of spirituality. That’s why she’s beating the pants off wonky, cerebral Obama. It’s the psychology, stupid.

Does anyone imagine Harman or Kelly speaking to the British soul as does the Last Night of the Proms?

Margaret Thatcher did. Sarah Palin does in America.

Janet Daley in the Telegraph nails it when she urges David Cameron to begin speaking for the nation. “Shouldn’t the voters be made to feel that there is a prospective Prime Minister who is not playing this game purely for party advantage and is actually prepared to speak up on their behalf?”

Silence is often interpreted as conspiracy.

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