Labour facing defeat so move the goalposts

I understand that Gordon Brown is planning to ask MPs to vote next week on moving towards changing Britain's voting system. The BBC are reporting that:

"Senior ministers agreed today to propose an amendment to the Constitutional Renewal Bill to offer voters a referendum by the autumn of 2011 on scrapping Britain's "first past the post" system and replacing it with the "alternative vote" (AV) system. The cabinet is to be asked to approve the plan tomorrow, allowing Gordon Brown to unveil the idea in a speech he is delivering on political reform at lunchtime. "

There we go, Gordon Brown knows Labour are likely to be heading for electoral defeat, so he's come around to the idea of changing the system. A nice Alternative Vote system would be pretty certain to keep a Labour/Lib Dem coalition in permanent power and by proposing the idea now Gordon Brown hopes to persuade enough Lib Dems to vote Labour in Conservative / Lib Dem marginals so as to return a Labour government.

Nothing, but nothing, Gordon Brown and his cabal do from now until May will surprise me. They will fight dirty, they will smear and attack and with the support of the BBC they may even be returned to power.