Former Cabinet Minister Arthur Hodgson's challenge in 2000 of Premier Jennifer Smith's leadership of the Progressive Labour Party failed for two reasons.

The first reason was that Mr. Hodgson and his supporters were out-organised by the Premier and her backers.

The second reason was that Mr. Hodgson never really ran a campaign at all. As a sitting Cabinet Minister then, he may have been reluctant to come out publicly against Ms Smith then. But that meant that he could never run an open campaign then in which he clearly outlined his ideas and showed how they differed from Ms Smith's.

What Mr. Hodgson should have learned from his last experience is that it does not matter how many Cabinet Ministers and MPs you have supporting them; the key to winning the leadership of the PLP lies with winning over delegates and you cannot do that with a single speech at the PLP conference.

Because Mr. Hodgson would not throw down the gauntlet before the conference in 2000 he never had the opportunity to convince the delegates that he would make a better PLP leader, and Premier, than Ms Smith.

If he wants to challenge Ms Smith again, he needs to announce his intentions well in advance of the conference and then he needs to publicly lay out his plans and programmes. Failing to do will doom any potential challenge and will make Mr. Hodgson look indecisive.

This is even more important this time because Mr. Hodgson, having tried and failed to take the leadership once, will not be able to count on the same support he enjoyed in 2000. Some dissidents within the PLP will now be looking for a new challenger - possibly a candidate with more of a Cabinet track record than Mr. Hodgson.

Other dissidents, in spite of their unhappiness with the Premier's leadership, will swing behind her because "a house divided cannot stand" and it is too soon until the next General Election for the PLP to go through another bruising campaign.

This may be the trump card for the Premier.

While she can defend the Government's record over the last three-and-a-half years, that may not be enough to convince the PLP delegates.

But the Premier can argue that a change in leadership, not to mention an unsavoury and difficult party squabble, is not what the PLP needs now.

Just as she could argue in 2000 that it was the wrong time to change horses, and that she had, after all, led the PLP to power for the first time, she can now argue that it is too late now for another challenge.

That is not to say that the Premier's leadership of the PLP and the Government have been flawless. Far from it. The leaderships' dictatorial approach to government, both within the PLP and without, is well chronicled and is clearly an area that Mr. Hodgson will focus on. So too is the Government's poor performance on tourism, and its handling of recent scandals.

Whether Mr. Hodgson will be able to turn these problems to his advantage remains to be seen. But he needs to start a public debate now if he wishes to have any chance at all in November.