Crowds are good at ­lying. That is why Gordon Brown did not make ­Margaret Thatcher's mistake when he faced his leadership crisis this week. He did not invite his cabinet colleagues one by one to his office to tell him the truth, as she did in November 1990. She discovered to her cost that such confidences can be devastating.

Instead Brown took his cause to the sweaty seats, gloomy walls and raucous mob of Commons committee room 14. This is safe territory where whips roam free and the dark arts of loyalty, mendacity and ambition hold sway. In such dark corners and sinister corridors a British prime minister can wield near limitless power. Brown knew that, and on Monday he trounced his foes.

With such enemies as the parliamentary Labour party, Brown needed no friends. Anyone wondering why Labour is so bad at government need only study the party in putsch mode. It is useless. Tories topple leaders with the facility of communards. Failed coups are embedded in Labour history, as Attlee, Gaitskell, Wilson and Blair could attest.

Last week's alleged conspiracy involving the "rolling resignations" of Hazel Blears, James Purnell, John Hutton and Geoff Hoon was about as effective as the plot to kill Hitler. The press was primed with headlines such as CountBrown, MeltBrown, Brown Doomed and Browned Off. But the conspirators believed the press and the press believed the conspirators. It was magnificent, but ridiculous. It was not war.

In the first place, the prime minister had no intention of going. He is many things but not spineless. He was able to manipulate patronage and whipping through each day of the crisis, culminating in the nobbling by promotion of his chief rival, Alan Johnson. Such is the glamour of Westminster that its denizens, especially the press, overrate its constitutional power, while underrating that of Downing Street.

Second, while the Tory constitution enables a stalking horse to run and then give way to a cabinet big hitter on a second ballot, Labour requires the big hitter to declare public disloyalty of his or her boss from the start. To run for Labour leader, a candidate must almost certainly resign high office and be sure of support in parliament, the constituencies and unions.

None of Brown's senior colleagues, such as Alistair Darling, Jack Straw and David Miliband, were plausible successors, with a party or national following. The putative strongest candidate was the unknown Johnson. Other than James Purnell, most of the dissidents were ministers promoted beyond their talents, some because they were women. None was a "big beast" of the sort that plagued the leadership of ­Wilson, early Thatcher and Major.

Nor was Brown's analysis of his electoral prospects wholly implausible. The local elections were appalling, but not uniquely so for a party long in government. The Tories never had a happy local election in 18 years of rule. As for the misreading of the Euro elections, it was classic Westminster-centric dazzle. These elections do not choose representatives, let along governors, for anywhere that matters to voters. They are part a referendum on the popularity of the European Union, part an invitation to kick conventional politics in the teeth, to the benefit of minority parties.

After the expenses scandal, this invitation was joyously accepted, to the glee of greens, little Englanders and rightwing racists. So much for proportional representation. As for the media cry of "Wales has gone Tory" and "Labour comes fifth in the south-west", it was rubbish. You cannot extrapolate such a poll in this way. It is more trivial even than a byelection. Every vox pop and canvas report testified to Euro elections as mischievous and eccentric.

I thought from the moment of his accession that Brown would make a disastrous prime minister, but would last the course to 2010. Not for nothing is Major the patron saint of Brown's circle – Major redux of 1992, rather than doomed of 1997. It is not unreasonable for Downing Street to gamble on a return of economic confidence by the start of next year, and not unreasonable to dream of another "surge" – as in summer 2007, and during the G20 and credit crunch diplomacy earlier this year.

Brown was never likely to win a general election, but he might sensibly hope for an honourable defeat, like that other tail-end Charlie, Douglas-Home, in 1964. As such he may yet save the seats of dozens of MPs who have made such a hash of trying to oust him. Anyway, there is no other plausible scenario. Things could not be worse next year. The maxim holds that "treason never prospers, for if it prospers none dare call it treason". But when treason fails, it is in the interests of all to forget it.

Brown's chief saviour was his old rival, Blair, whose early reforms to Labour's constitution made unseating a leader near impossible. His post-1992 modernisation project devalued the role of unions, party conference and national executive. The man who 10 years earlier jeered that SDP defectors had "isolated themselves from organised labour" did just that himself. Labour had to detoxify its electoral image from any association with a party dominated by trade unions or leftwing constituencies.

Blair all but ended the block vote, ended union dominance in choosing leaders and candidates, and ended the role of the party conference in selecting the shadow cabinet and writing the manifesto. Blair ended the ­supremacy of the national executive. Even after succeeding John Smith in 1994 Blair said: "I would rather be beaten and leave politics than bend to the [Labour] party."

Imitating Bill Clinton's success in America, Blair had to make Labour safe for charisma, preferably his own. That he made it safe for someone as uncharismatic as Brown is merely political irony. Thanks to Blair, Brown can hire and fire ministers at will. Thanks to Blair, Brown can disregard his party and its electoral fate. His sole constraint is his ability to command a parliamentary majority. It was to that majority that he appealed triumphantly on Monday night.

By then Brown had used his power of patronage to stem the flow of blood from the cabinet and to reassert the power, unique among modern democracies, that Britain's constitution vests in its executive. That power is awesome, strong enough to defy the argument of the polls, the party, the cabinet and the media that he should go. It enabled Brown to buy himself another year in Downing Street, and with ease.