UK: Brown planning departure?

So, the way it would work would be like this: Brown realises that he can't win the next general election (he knows what's in store for the country in 2009 and it isn't good). But he doesn't want to be one of the shortest lived PMs on record, without ever having the voters' mandate, so he concocts the idea of being ill.

Now that Hank Paulson has adjusted his intervention scheme to include taking equity stakes in banks, what Brown calls the Brown Plan (and Europeans call the Sarkozy Plan and economists call the Swedish Plan) has been adopted universally. The banks stabilise, interbank lending rates go down towards Bank Rate and Brown claims he has saved the world. He regretfully retires due to failing eyesight and leaves the stage to write his memoirs (everyone to blame except Gordon).

Mandelson oversees the coronation of the new Blairite champion. The Tories say Brown may have helped fix the banks but the real economy is up the spout and only they can save it. The election is closer than it might have been with Brown there, but the Tories win with a 30 seat majority.

If all this turns out to be nonsense I shall deny it was a forecast. If it proves correct, however....