There is something mesmerising, and not altogether human, about Gordon Brown's grim determination to remain Prime Minister. It seems he will pay any price, tell any lie and suffer any indignity in order to hold onto power, even as that power drains away. Matthew Parris's report from Friday's bizarre post-reshuffle press conference skewers it:

It is also an act of supreme selfishness on Mr Brown's part. Wrapping himself like some wingless albatross around his administration's throat, starving his own colleagues of oxygen in his mindless determination that other careers should not live in order that his should not die, he has brought his Government and his party to the ground, broken their legs - and yet still will not release his grip. They must crawl on, shackled together, past the humiliation of Thursday's elections and onward for another year: plans jettisoned, policies stalled, Bills postponed, shelving everything bold, all in the name of mere survival. Mr Brown's survival. Never mind Labour's, never mind the future of progressive politics, never mind the ideas and spirits of capable men and women in and around his Cabinet.

Matthew Parris ~ A shell of a man, propelled by anger and pride

But it's not just Labour who stand to lose; what about the country? Worse than an ineffective, drifting government is a Prime Minister who knows his time is running out and is desperate to get back in the game with one swing. Gordon Brown shows every sign that he will seek salvation through legislation, announcing on Friday that he would push ahead with economic rescue, public service reform and (gulp) constitutional renewal.

New Labour has a well-documented tendency to rush out badly-drafted, ill-considered law in order to solve its own public relations problems. How much worse will that get now that the Prime Minister is living in Shitsville? He has already (twice!) undermined Sir Christopher Kelly's independent report on MPs' expenses by suddenly announcing his own arbitrary measures, and now he seems hell-bent on using the British constitution as the vehicle for his personal rehabilitation.

Such a thing cannot, and I think will not, be allowed to happen. We clearly need comprehensive constitutional and electoral reform, but such an undertaking is too important to be left to politicians alone. It has to be separate from government. Although the details of his proposed Council for Democratic Renewal are sketchy, I have a terrible feeling that he will use it to try and dictate reform rather than establish an open, independent and inclusive process for debating and agreeing changes to our system.

Perhaps tonight's European election results will be so bad for Labour that Gordon will not survive; but I doubt it. If the loss of every single Labour council in England didn't shift him, why would a collapse in Labour's European voteshare shame him into going?

But there's always hope. Citizen K will be watching the results with interest.