This week started with Jackie Ashley's suggestion that a Labour rebellion could lead to Gordon Brown's resignation.  We end it with a slew of articles wondering if the U-turn will result in the same thing - but on a more drawn out time scale..

As it happens, even the most hostile commentators don't suggest the effect of doing a u-turn will be as imminently disastrous as Ashley was suggesting.  But its progressive commentators who are most interesting.

Polly Toynbee in The Guardian gets to grips with the detail ('Stop tinkering, Gordon.  Be bold, and show whose side you are really on') - but ignores the implications of the IFS study earlier this week that taxing the rich won't necessarily bring in more revenue.

Nick Clegg has sparked an intense round of comments and reactions with his article 'A clunking climbdown', also in The Guardian.

Thirdly and, for the sake of brevity, finally The Economist looks to what the fallout will mean for the Labour party with an eye to next week's elections ('Beleaguered Mr Brown').

It concludes:

"Labour has been similarly keen to downplay hopes for May 1st. A modest set of results—Mr Livingstone scraping home in London and a slight improvement on last year's share of the popular vote elsewhere—may end up being seen as a spectacular double-whammy. Mr Brown's underlying problems—a declining economy, his shortcomings as a communicator—would remain; but even a short respite from them would be welcomed."

With a 21 year high poll result from a YouGov poll in today's Telegraph - Labour will do well to achieve even that.