The worst time to hear "You've got mail"

Polls in the UK have just opened, and Britain will be the first EU nation to cast votes in the European Parliament election. The remaining 26 nations will cast their votes over the coming weekend. I'll have more on how it will shape out and how the parties coagulate when they arrive in Strasbourg or Brussels.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Gordon Brown bid a tempered adieu to another Cabinet member yesterday, communities secretary Hazel Blears. Blears made no secret of her disapproval of Brown's performance, and went home to her constituency to campaign for her fellow Labour candidates in today's elections wearing a pin saying "Rocking the Boat". She, along with others who resigned this week from Cabinet, were potentially on the way out anyway as Brown contemplated a reshuffle in the wake of the expenses row and potential humiliation in the polls.

Meanwhile, several Labour MPs are reportedly circulating an e-mail to gather signatures forcing an internal leadership battle. For the e-mail to take effect, 20 percent of Labour's MPs (just over 70) would need to sign it, backing one candidate who would be willing to challenge Brown, to force a snap leadership poll.

More interestingly, should enough of Brown's closest advisers convince him that he's cooked and needs to step aside to salvage Labour's reputation and keep him from becoming England's version of Kim Campbell, then in the ensuing leadership contest, a candidate would only need the support of 40 MPs. Or, were every non-Labour MP to vote in favor of a no-confidence motion, only 33 Labour MPs would need to defy their whips and vote to topple their own government. Of course, they wouldn't survive for long in their own party caucus.

Unless they were already on their way out. Currently, seven Labour MPs have announced in recent weeks that they will leave Parliament when this term is done, and three of them have been barred from returning to Parliament as part of Labour. Public resentment toward these defrocked MPs over their excessive claims further intensified when word came of their golden parachutes should they leave when Parliament dissolves. Were these particular MPs interested in keeping their dessert from the public trough, they could easily back efforts to dissolve Parliament before Parliament takes up much-needed reform legislation and disciplinary action.

Is there any guarantee that these MPs would actually be petty enough to put their golden parachute ahead of their own party's interests? Hardly, but given the chaos of the past several weeks, it's entirely possible.