This week the political commentariat have been having a field day at the expense of Phil Goff

With his own attempt at a 'one nation/nationhood' speech now having failed, it's clear to see that if there is no turnaround by March next year in both his and the Labour Party's ratings, then he could be forced to step down as leader. Either that or a nasty three-way leadership contest could result.

If Goff were to be ejected from the leadership, then the only plausible alternatives could be Shane Jones with  David Parker as deputy. Most speculation has centered upon Jones at the moment but even outside observers don't rate him as an effective leader - at least for now. The same can be said for finance spokesperson David Cunliffe who has not performed well against finance minister Bill English in the House. Yet Cunliffe will not be deterred by this and may put his name forward as well, perhaps in tandem with Ruth Dyson for deputy.

Either of the abovementioned combinations wouldn't make for a 'dream team' but they could still be given time to recover some lost support for Labour if they did make it. However, the reality is now beginning to dawn on the Labour caucus that the 2011 election is pretty much a lost cause.

So the dilemma for the Labour caucus is this - do they stick with Goff and take a potentially disastrous result on the chin in 2011?  Or do they change leadership teams in early 2010 and perhaps risk still losing but with a slightly higher party vote than could be achieved under the current leadership?

If I were a Labour caucus member, the latter option would look more appealing.

But there is a longer term game plan being played out here too. While Labour president Andrew Little has publicly backed his leader, there have been rumours (one which I have heard) that there were sharp disagreements between him and Goff over the nationhood speech. In short, I would sooner believe that John Key was an alien than in Little and Goff's denial of any rift. After all, the strongest rumour I have heard is that Andrew Little has long-term designs on the leadership of the parliamentary party and will make a relatively quick move in that direction after his expected election to the House in 2011.

In doing this, he will be seeking to imitate another union leader, the former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke who became the leader of that country's Labor Party within his first term in parliament. Shortly after that, Hawke went on to win the prime ministership in a landslide. Little, if he were to emulate the Hawke route to power, will be counting on himself being seen as the fresh face of Labour. This scenario might work best if a John Key-led National Party is still in office in 2014. By then it will be (hopefully for Little) suffering from third term blues and, hence, vulnerable to a reinvigorated Labour Party.

Therefore, if Little were to win the leadership, this is why he probably would forcibly retire much of the current frontbench and introduce the fresh faces who were elected from 2005 onwards to lead the charge. Alongside this, there would be a complete overhaul of Labour policy with even some policy hangovers from the Rogernomics era (such as Reserve Bank independence and fiscal probity) being dumped in favour of a more neo-Keynesian approach.

But, for now, Labour remains stuck in the doldrums. While some commentators have said that Goff will lead the party into the 2011 election given a lack of credible contenders, it now appears that Goff's poor peformance will force the parliamentary caucus's hand before then.

And it couldn't happen to a nicer guy than Phil Goff, a real Rogernome (even though he says he isn't one now!)