JUST as the polls are looking a lot less depressing, the economy is showing signs of improvement, and David Cameron is in a mess over tax breaks for married couples, the Labour Party goes and shoots itself in the foot.

It is hard to imagine that former Cabinet ministers Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon were acting in isolation yesterday when they wrote to Labour MPs saying the issue over Gordon Brown’s leadership must be sorted out “once and for all”.

But whatever support they were presumably expecting in the form of a Cabinet resignation failed to materialise last night, leaving them looking like a pair of disloyal dopes.

The time when the Labour Party could have ditched their leader has long passed.

The opportunity to do so came when James Purnell surprisingly quit the Cabinet last year but Mr Brown, with no obvious successor coming to the fore, saw off the threat with limited discomfort.

A successful coup months before an election would have meant the country being run by an unelected leader, replacing a man who had himself not been elected by the public.

That would have been unprecedented in this country and left Labour’s chances of a fourth term on even shakier ground than they already are.

For all Labour’s problems, the election result is long way from being a foregone conclusion because David Cameron has failed to convince enough people that he is the man to trust.

Gordon Brown should now be allowed to get on with trying to exploit those doubts without distractions from the disaffected minority.