As I have said before I do think Gordon is a decent man and is driven by decent values - after all he spent most of the last 11 years attempting to radically reduce poverty both here and in the developing world.

But he is just out of his depth as Prime Minister and that is damaging all of us in the Labour Party and, ultimately, the country.

Britain needs a Labour government but with Gordon in charge we aren't going to have one for very much longer. We need a new leader who will at least give us a fighting chance in a general election.

Three stories in the last week illustrate why we have to summon up the courage and ask, or force, Gordon to leave.

Firstly: the food fiasco. The issue here is not, as Colin Byrne and Lance Price have suggested, the foolishness of saying eat your crusts and then toddling off for an 18 course meal. For sure that indicates people employed in the machine cannot do their job. But the real issue is a deeper one - that the Prime Minister thinks it is his job to make speeches at any time denouncing this or that eating habit. That big state mentality just isn't where the voters are at.

Secondly, the stories that No 10 runs its own whipping operation in parallel to the real one. This just illustrates a deep problem with Gordon Brown's political praxis. Like Thatcher you are either for him or you are the enemy within. Gordon has absolute control over who is in the whips office but still has to run his own little, presumably meant to be secret, operation. It is a lack of collegiality that means he isn't up to being leader.

Thirdly, Cameron's amazing speech blaming the poor for their poverty. This ought to be political dynamite. Every Labour minister ought to be referring to it in every speech and at every public occasion. But I don't think I have heard one even mention it in passing - and that is a symptom of how the party machine is fundamentally and irretrievably broken under Mr Brown. It's not about money, it is about simple political understanding and having the guts and energy to fightback against the Tories.

I really believe the Tories can be beaten. I think Cameron's arrogance is beginning to show through and the fact that he hasn't got a single coherent policy except to bring back fox hunting and he has never run anything bigger than a TV company's PR office make him very vulnerable to a short sharp attack.

But we also have to be honest. People have decided they don't want Gordon as Prime Minister and they are prepared to take the gamble on Cameron.

If we don't act then we are culpable in letting that happen.