David Cameron’s recent directive to his MPs to give Gordon Brown an easier ride in the Commons is unlikely to have left the Prime Minister with a warm, tingly feeling of being valued. Indeed, to be labelled as so politically hapless that even your principal rival can’t stand to see you endure further humiliation must rank somewhere above Charles I’s doubled shirt allowance on execution day in the list of the top ten least comforting gestures.

Naturally, Cameron knew this at the time, and his less-than-secret entreaties to his party must have been partly intended to enhance Mr Brown’s reputation as a lost cause. But behind the ridicule, a genuine tactical purpose is underpinning the idea, that purpose being to preserve the faltering Brown government in order to forestall the rise to power of a younger, perhaps more media-savvy generation of Labour leaders-in-waiting who might pose a stiffer challenge at a general election. Better the devil you know, goes the theory, especially when that devil continually trips over his tail, stubs his hoofs, or pokes himself in the eye with his own trident.

At the heart of this is the feeling that a Purnell, a Burnham or a Miliband or two might be ready to step into the void if Brown is felled, and that they might fare better in revitalising a threadbare, battered government than their beleaguered predecessor. After all, following a humiliation in Crewe and obliteration in Henley, they could hardly do any worse.

As a matter of risk avoidance, it might seem a sound plan to keep the turkey alive until Christmas; but it’s nonetheless a misjudgement, both of Brown and of the vultures circling over his head. Firstly, Brown may be bloodied, but he’s not yet out for the count. Hesitant and faltering as his first year has been, he is still an experienced and entrenched political heavyweight. If he can bring to bear on the current economic crisis the same ingenuity he employed as Chancellor in camouflaging the true extent of his borrowing and spending, he might yet rebuild his reputation and drag Labour to safety. If the Tories can finish him off before he has a chance, they should do so.

Secondly, Brown’s potential replacements are hardly terrifying. The interchangeable forty-somethings now being spoken of are either unknown or unimpressive or both. Having served as junior ministers and now in the cabinet, they also lack the credentials to represent a change of direction. Youth and likeability are of course advantages in political life, but only as adjuncts to genuine political skill and standing. Tony Blair and David Cameron both combined these essential assets; none of the Labour prospects yet appear to. A general election pitting Cameron against his supermarket own-brand equivalent is only going to go one way.

Offering Brown pity may allow the Tories to appear statesmanlike while sniggering on the inside, and as such is an attractive plan. But the better option would be to strike while the iron is hot, and do everything possible to dislodge a leader who is still his party’s most dangerous fighter – damning with faint praise though that description is.