ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Parris and Heffer urge Conservatives to keep their distance from Brown during financial crisis

In The Times, Matthew Parris warns that the Conservatives must "block their ears" to calls for cross-party support over the financial crisis. Gordon Brown's motivation, he argues, would be narrow party interest, concealed by a call for national unity:

"Mr Brown's real intention will be less worthy: to silence critics and bind political rivals into policies that they will not subsequently be able to criticise; to pre-empt their blaming him if things go wrong; to allow himself to slur those who voice disagreement in Parliament and the media as “unpatriotic”; to imply that any challenge to his own leadership is irresponsible; to stifle discussion of his own past role in the “Age of Irresponsibility”; and to go into the next election having effectively nobbled the opposition parties.

"Messrs Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Dr Cable should view this with extreme wariness. The danger is huge. Say “yes” and they may be sucked in to complicity in failure to rescue economic growth. Say “no” and they may be blamed for aggravating the failure."

In today's Telegraph, Simon Heffer makes the case that Brown is rightly to be blamed for the current crisis. It is now, he says, up to the Conservatives as the opposition party to take the lead in bringing down the government.

"Let there be no doubt about the extent of Gordon Brown’s culpability for the crisis. As Chancellor, he raised huge sums and borrowed yet more in order to build a client state of tame Labour voters on the public payroll – whether as employees or claimants. He pushed Britain to live way beyond its means not merely in this way, but by putting excessive amounts of money into circulation that banks could lend on with cavalier irresponsibility.

"... I have suspected, and this week’s non-events in the Tory party confirm my view, that they didn’t seek the recall of Parliament because they had nothing to say. They couldn’t bring themselves to attack the policies that exacerbated this mess because for the most part they supported them – certainly on incontinent public spending. Now, they are not taking on the Government’s handling of this crisis because they haven’t a clue what they would do differently."

Top Blair aide Matthew Taylor identifies Brown's fundamental problem of "authenticity"

At an event discussing Leadership at the London School of Economics yesterday evening, Matthew Taylor attacked Gordon Brown for having "consistently said one thing and done another". Now Chief Executive of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Taylor was Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit under Tony Blair, and later Blair's Chief Adviser on Strategy. His words represent the first unambiguous public attack on the Brown government by a key member of the Blair camp.

On policy, Taylor criticised Brown for the inconsistency of claiming to be for social justice and then cutting inheritance tax. On Brown's style of government, he charged that the Prime Minister had pretended to be for a new politics and then played the old political games on when to hold a General Election. Brown had presented himself as being for the politics of the big tent while briefing from Downing Street even against members of his own government.

Taylor argued that this authenticity issue more than anything else had damaged Brown with voters. This dislike was not to be traced to him being Scottish or brooding, but to a public feeling that Brown does not match up to their desire for a leader who is both authentic and effective.

Peter Cuthbertson

A speech that won't change anything

Much of 'Fleet Street' has decided that Gordon Brown's speech was a success.  This is the same 'Fleet Street' that always welcomed Chancellor Brown's budgets without reading the small print.  The screen grab on the right comes from the homepage of today's Guardian.  Here are some other over-reactions...

The Sun: "This speech won Mr Brown precious breathing space. But his exhausted face revealed the strain this battle for survival is inflicting. His ‘great clunking fist’ still managed to land a blow on David Cameron. Mr Brown portrayed the Tory leader as a carpet-bagger selling snake oil and patent cure-alls.  Mr Cameron must respond next week by filling the gaping holes in Tory policy — on Europe, taxes, spending and the NHS.  Otherwise Mr Brown’s charge will stick."

Daily Mail: "Well, he did it. On Monday, the Mail said Gordon Brown had to make the speech of his life if he was to silence Labour's rebels and revive battered confidence in his leadership. Yesterday, he delivered it. Gone was the defensive, beleaguered Mr Brown of the spring and summer, worn to exhaustion by the cares of office and the treachery of his colleagues.  In his place stood a defiant Prime Minister, infused with a new energy and passion, hungry to carry on in the job and meet any challenges it might throw at him."

Peter Oborne: "Gordon Brown rose politically from the dead. Of course, it is still not possible to be certain of his long-term  -  or even medium-term  -  survival. But one thing can be said with total certainty. Gordon Brown remains the biggest man in the Labour Party, and still the most potent force on our national stage.  The truth is that none of his mooted leadership successors  -  not Jack Straw, not Alan Johnson, not Harriet Harman  -  could make a speech half as good."

What a load of rubbish.  It's very rare for a speech to change anything in politics and yesterday's speech was far from exceptional (the attempt at an Al Gore kiss being the most notable feature of it).  We make a prediction: Labour's average poll rating will be broadly the same a fortnight after the party conference season as it was a fortnight before.  Leadership speculation will continue.  UKplc will remain at the bottom of the G7 league table.

The Westminster village loves speeches and slogans and reshuffles but the most stubborn fact in British politics is the steep decline in household disposable income.  Brown did nothing to address that yesterday and that is why he and Labour remain headed for electoral doom.

Financial Times rejects Brown's misuse of George Osborne quotation

In his conference speech today, Gordon Brown attacked George Osborne for words he used in response to events of recent weeks in the financial markets:

In the week that banks were collapsing the man who wants to run our economy not only said: this is not a problem caused by the financial markets but went on to say and, I quote, "that it's a function of financial markets that people make loads of money out of the misery of others."

Jim Pickard of The Financial Times, which also reported the supposed quotation, has described Brown as twisting the words Osborne in fact used:

Gordon Brown twists the words of the shadow chancellor

True, George Osborne didn’t sound desperately sympathetic to the plight of credit crunch victims when he said on Newsnight last week: “Well look, no one takes pleasure from people making money out of the misery of others, but that is a function of capitalist markets.”

But that is NOT the same as the quote attributed to him by the prime minister just now:

“That it’s a function of financial markets that people make loads of money out of the misery of others.”

The attack on Osborne was preceded by claims that Labour had given women and working men the vote in the face of Conservative opposition. ConservativeHome noted that in fact it was a Conservative government under Benjamin Disraeli which extended the vote to working men in 1867 - decades before the Labour Party was formed. It was also a Liberal/Conservative National Government that gave women over the age of 30 the vote in 1918 and a Conservative government under Stanley Baldwin that in 1928 established an equal voting age of 21 for men and women.

Peter Cuthbertson

Brown says Conservatives have "changed their tune but haven't changed their minds"

In today's conference speech, reported in press around the world this morning as crucial to the Prime Minister's survival, Gordon Brown barely mentioned the Conservative Party until he approached the end.

Brown's attack began as to much applause he claimed as Labour achievements such progress as giving working men and women the vote: "Every single blow we have struck for fairness and for the future has been bitterly opposed by the Conservative Party". In fact, it was a Conservative government under Benjamin Disraeli which extended the vote to working men in 1867 -decades before the Labour Party was formed. It was also a Liberal/Conservative National Government that gave women over the age of 30 the vote in 1918 and a Conservative government under Stanley Baldwin that in 1928 established an equal voting age of 21 for men and women.

On the economy, Brown said angrily that the Conservatives were wrong, in the ongoing crisis, to have opposed nationalisation of Northern Rock and to oppose the ban on short-selling: "What has become clear is that Britain cannot trust the Conservatives to run the economy".

Brown mentioned David Cameron only once by name, but referred to a smart "Conservative leaders' team" with a plan that they are implementing "ruthlessly": give the appearance of having changed as a party and conceal with they really think. Brown compared them to the salesman who won't tell you what he's selling because if he did no one would want to buy it. After giving his list of Conservative proposals, Brown concluded that Tories had "changed their tune but haven't changed their minds". He went on to deny that Britain's society was broken - "by anyone or anything".

The full text of Brown's attack on the Conservatives:

You know our party so often in its history has been home to the big ideas - ideas later taken for granted, but revolutionary in their time. Just think, the vote for working men, and then for women, the NHS, legal protection from race or sex discrimination. These are no longer just Labour policies, they are established British values - they are the common sense of our age.

And we should never forget one thing - that every single blow we have struck for fairness and for the future has been opposed by the Conservatives.

And just think where our country would be if we'd listened to them. No paternity leave, no New Deal, no bank of England independence, no Sure Start, no devolution, no civil partnerships, no minimum wage, no new investment in the NHS, no new nurses, no new police, no new schools.

And so let's hear no more from the Conservatives - we did fix the roof while the sun was shining.

And just think if we'd taken their advice on the global financial crisis. Their policy was to let northern rock fold and imperil the whole financial system, our Labour government saved northern rock so not a single UK depositor lost out.

Their policy said, in this week of all weeks, that speculative short selling should continue. We acted decisively to end reckless speculation.

And the only man who would improve Labour's fortunes is...

...Tony Blair.

That's the conclusion of a YouGov poll for this morning's Telegraph.

These hypothetical match-up polls have to be taken with a large helping of salt, of course.  Voters know Tony Blair but not James Purnell, for example.  Polls in 2005 didn't suggest that a relatively unknown David Cameron would help the Conservatives very much compared to big beasts like Ken Clarke.  But as the leadership process wore on a big lead for Clarke... started to evaporate.

The poll also finds that a whopping 77% of voters do not think Brown is up to the job of being PM.

The Conservatives have a 47% to 25% lead overall but The Telegraph hasn't published a number for the LibDems.  When we get a number for the LibDems we'll publish the usual poll graphic.

9.15am:

Parallels with 1995-97 (and differences)

Rob Wilson MP has already done a good demolition job on the theory that flatters Brown by comparing him to John Major.  This week's Spectator leader is drawing parallels between the leadership speculation that undermined Mr Major and that which is now undermining Mr Brown:

"Labour’s behaviour now closely resembles that of the Tories before and immediately after the 1997 election. This week, all the talk has been of a potential ‘dream ticket’ bringing together David Miliband and Alan Johnson — a remarkably close echo of those in the mid-Nineties who called for a Portillo–Heseltine duumvirate. Curious alliances are proposed. Just as the Europhile Kenneth Clarke and Eurosceptic John Redwood formed an axis in 1997 in a (doomed) attempt to deny William Hague the Tory leadership, so in 2008 there is bizarre talk of an insurgent alliance of neo-Blairites and the left-wing Compass group. And, as in the Major years and their grisly aftermath, absolutely anyone can be a leadership hopeful: for Redwood in 1995 and 1997, read Harriet Harman in 2008."

There are similarities between now and that period but there are also very big differences.  Major enjoyed a growing economy, for example.  Brown's economic chickens are coming home to roost.  Major had his own mandate from the electorate.  Brown doesn't and is much less personally popular than Major.  Redwood offered a very clear policy alternative.  Miliband's article yesterday was pretty mushy.  The calibre of the potential successors to Major was also much higher.  Clarke, Heseltine, Howard and Portillo, for example, could all have assumed the Tory leadership (and after serious experience of Cabinet) - although none of them uncontroversially.  Only Straw has the weight of the people around Major.

We did have two bigger disadvantages then: (1) We'd be in office longer and people were more bored, (2) Blair enjoyed satisfaction ratings higher than Cameron (although Cameron still has time to change that).

Labour's leadership crisis

Today's extraordinarily self-indulgent article by David Miliband in The Guardian - the one that doesn't mention the Prime Minister once - may mark the beginning of the end for Gordon Brown.  So what are we to make of it all?  A few thoughts:

It's difficult to feel sorry for Mr Brown.  There is talk of mass resignations from the Labour frontbench if Brown doesn't go voluntarily. This is reminiscent of the wave of PPS resignations that precipitated Blair's resignation. The Brownites coordinated that wave. What goes around comes around, as they say.  John Howard was threatened with mass resignations before last year's Australian elections and he called his critics' bluff.  He survived as leader but was heavily defeated at the General Election.

Brown may not budge. It's still quite possible that Brown won't quit even if frontbenchers do resign.  The one thing that the Brownites excel at is internal party warfare. Look out for strong briefing against Miliband appearing in the papers over the next few days.

What's the hurry? Unless the new leader is prepared to hold an immediate General Election there isn't much point changing the leader before next year's local and European elections. Gordon Brown might as well take the heat for bad results from them. 

The right and wrong ways to attack Labour

CCHQ has just released a very good briefing on how Labour is lurching to the left.  The briefing (a pdf of which is here) notes how Labour is giving more and more favours to their union paymasters (also see The Times). It also details 'lurches to the left' including higher taxes, ending of the fiscal rules, nationalising Northern Rock, the Agency Workers Directive and restricting the freedom of Academy schools.

This substantive criticism of Brown is the right way to go forward.  For the reasons highlighted by Nadine Dorries MP we must avoid personal attacks on Brown.

Cameron accuses Brown of bottling it over expenses

David Cameron has accused Brown of a lack of leadership this evening for not attending last night's defeated vote on the expenses reforms that he wanted to go through.

Meanwhile Nick Clegg has gone a step further and committed to unilaterally introducing some of the recommendations of the Members Estimates Committee, such as independent spot checks of MPs expenses and quarterly expenses reports from his "shadow cabinet".

The vast majority of MPs who voted to keep the discredited "John Lewis" status quo were Labour, including thirty-three ministers and Brown's two parliamentary private secretaries. On the Platform today Mark Field MP called for decisions on these matters to be taken away from MPs:

"It seems to me that most MPs simply fail to understand the level of public disbelief at the stream of revelations over the extensive enrichment of parliamentarians courtesy of the allowances and expenses system. All of this has grown like topsy over the past decade as a result of parliament’s repeated reluctance to bite the bullet and increase the MPs’ headline salary.

Indeed even this week the Prime Minster continues to grandstand, by publicly criticising the proposal from an independent body to raise the MPs’ headline salary and put a mechanism for independent future review in place, yet at the same time turn a blind eye to the continued scandalous abuse of the current system. Instead, a culture of cynicism has grown up with an understanding that some of the burgeoning allowances could be siphoned off as the equivalent of salary." 

The most important fact in British politics

If you want to know why the Tories are an average 17% ahead in ConservativeHome's Poll of Polls we suggest it is, quite simply, the reduction in peoples' earnings.  Rising incomes protected Tony Blair from his failures on crime, immigration and the public services but they are no longer protecting Gordon Brown.

Research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research for ASDA - quoted in The Telegraph - shows that the average family is £400 worse off this year.  Increased incomes have been wiped out by rising taxes and rising prices.  A big hat-tip to Tory candidate for Dover, Charlie Elphicke.  His research for the Centre for Policy Studies has been way ahead of the curve on this issue.

It's been nearly a year since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister and CCHQ has produced a devastating dossier on his failings.  Chapters attack him for basic failures, incompetence, dithering, opportunism, hypocrisy and "Brownies".  Section 2.4 of the dossier even takes up Guido's theme of 'Jonah Brown'.

You can upload a PDF of the report to read for yourself but here are two highlights of an incredibly thorough piece of work that will feed journalists for months to come:

1. The events that have produced the decline and decline of Mr Brown

Click to enlarge.


2. Images from Brown's year

Clockwise from top left: Asleep at the UN, With orange make-up all over his face, Tangled in a net, Receiving the Olympic torch in Downing Street, Launching his leadership bid obscured by an autocue.

Philip Dunne MP reveals Labour's latest insult to rural Britain

Research for the Centre for Policy Studies by Conservative MP Philip Dunne has revealed how Gordon Brown has used his control of the nation's purse strings to tilt the growth of funding towards urban Britain - much of it Labour's heartlands.

Commenting to The Telegraph, Mr Dunne said:

"Gordon Brown has a simple strategy to win the next election: to bribe his areas of traditional strength with money pinched from Tory-voting shires. Central government grants of all kinds to councils and other public bodies have increased far faster in cities and big towns than they have in country area.  We have witnessed a deliberate policy of switching taxpayers' money from the country to the city. It has been done in secret, with no announcement, no public debate, no explanation and no justification."

The leader-writers at The Telegraph agree that politics explains the change:

"Country people have made the mistake of refusing to return Labour councils. Indeed, in the southern counties, Labour has virtually disappeared as a political force - an eviction far more dramatic, though less remarked, than the paucity of Tories in Liverpool and Manchester.  Put bluntly, spending more in an area makes its inhabitants likelier to look to the state for their livelihood, which in turn makes them likelier to vote for the high-tax party."

The rural-to-urban drift of funding - previously highlighted by Owen Paterson MP - is only one manifestation of Gordon Brown's use of the highest and stealthiest tax burden in British history to buy votes.

There is the subsidy of Scotland and Wales and the transfer of money from south to north generally.  The massive growth in public sector employment and the quangocracy.   And, of course, the subsidy of the trade unions in return for them paying 90%+ of the Labour Party's bills.

Harriet, Jack, David and Alan are here to see you, Prime Minister

The headline numbers point to a 24% Conservative lead.  But the most interesting finding in the post post-Crewe poll - by YouGov for The Telegraph - is that voters have reached a clear conclusion that Brown is a massive liability to Labour.

Although a slim majority - 52% - don't think a change of Labour leader will make much difference, 32% think Labour's chances will improve and just 8% think things will get worse.  Only 15% are satisfied with Brown's performance and 75% are dissatisfied.

There is much talk of the difficulty of getting rid of Brown.  These sorts of polling numbers suggest to Labour MPs that Mr Brown's position is close to impossible.  Could he really stay in post if Harriet Harman, Jack Straw, David Miliband and Alan Johnson call a meeting and tell him to quit?  John Howard faced down such a delegation a year or so ago when the Australian Liberal Party was facing defeat under his leadership.  He survived as Liberal leader but Labor's Kevin Rudd became PM in a massive win.

PS Who are the 2% of voters who told YouGov that taxes are too low?

Labour should keep Brown in place

Remember that photo from 1992 that showed John Major with his head in his hands?  The camera can be very cruel and this image from Sky is very unkind to Gordon Brown.

How bad is it for the PM?  Bad and getting worse:

• Hot on the heels of 'the May Day massacre' we have Frank Field threatening to no confidence the PM if he doesn't complete a full u-turn on 10p.
• Mr Field - again - has said that he would be "very surprised" if Gordon Brown was still Prime Minister by the time of the General Election.  Every Conservative's favourite Labour MP told the BBC World Service that Mr Brown appeared "so unhappy inside his own body" and was prone to "indescribable" rages.
• Mr Brown had to travel through a valley of memoirs at the weekend and an opinion poll suggesting Crewe is likely to be lost to the Conservatives.  And Labour are fighting a campaign that the party's own activists have dubbed "disgusting".
• We've had another attempt at a relaunch this morning but (as was obvious from the 8.10am Today interview with Alan Johnson) we're not getting any decisive government action on social care for the elderly but yet another review.

But is Labour's fundamental problem its leader or an overall sense of exhaustion?  There is no obvious alternative to Mr Brown and, as Louise Bagshawe noted a month ago, Labour's internal rules make it very hard to unseat him.  We'd also recommend that Brown is left in place unless he chooses to quit.  The toppling of Margaret Thatcher in 1990 may have brought short-term electoral gain for the Conservatives but it injected a poison into the party's bloodstream for many years.  Our party is only just rediscovering the importance of loyalty.  Labour should use its remaining time in government to govern and face the electorate in 2010 with Gordon Brown as its leader.

Tory MPs queue up to offer Brown some advice

It wasn't a dream folks: the Conservatives really are 26% ahead.

Yes,  T W E N T Y   S I X.

And in this topsy-turvy world you may like to know some things don't change... Michael Portillo was up to his usual tricks last night and told Andrew Neil's This Week programme that he didn't vote for Boris.

This morning's Guardian has a So what should Gordon Brown do now? feature.  A number of Tories have contributed their thoughts:

Nine out of ten political insiders say Brown is an electoral liability

Things aren't looking good for Brown.  That's not just our view.

Nine-out-of-ten political insiders say that Gordon Brown is an electoral liability but a majority don't believe that he'll be removed from office.

Andrew Rawnsley analyses the whole dataset at PoliticsHome.

PS This, deliciously, is an extract from the main story on LabourHome:

"Whenever there was a crisis for Blair – Gordon was nowhere to be found and a statement came a few days after the fact. We’ve now stumbled from issue, to crisis, to non-issue for almost a year and this guy never makes his argument convincingly.  To put it frankly – someone who has hidden away from difficult conversations with the public and the press has no real right to associate himself with courage.  Someone who contrived relentlessly and remorselessly to oust the most successful leader this party has ever had is in ill a position to expect loyalty.  Someone with the least credible ability to argue a case or policy has no right to call himself leader."

Tories aim to smash Labour unity on 1st May

"Devastating" is the only way to describe the article that Rachel Sylvester has penned this morning for today's Telegraph.

Here are ten of the problems facing the Government that she lists:

1. Disrespect for Brown: "Last week, the Prime Minister had to endure what was described to me as a "low-level heckle" by his own backbenchers at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party."
2. A wide range of contentious issues: "MPs are in open rebellion over the abolition of the 10p tax rate for the lowest paid workers and the proposal to lock up terrorist suspects, without charge, for 42 days. They are cross about post office closures; they are suspicious of plans for housing; they are concerned about ideas on welfare reform."
3. Cross-party unhappiness: "Disillusioned Left-wingers, who campaigned for Mr Brown to become leader, are joining forces with triumphant Blairites who say: "I told you so.""
4. Frontbench rebellions: "Last week, Ivan Lewis, a health minister, warned that Labour was "losing touch" with hard-working families, then Gerry Sutcliffe, the licensing minister, attacked the tax rises on booze."
5. Cabinet disunity: "I am reliably informed that, after one recent Cabinet meeting, Jack Straw threatened to punch Ed Balls during a row about who was responsible for youth crime."
6. Chancellor-PM tensions: "The Chancellor is already planning his memoirs, as an insurance policy against the Prime Minister."
7. Worries about drift and dither: "Ministers who were once in awe of Mr Brown have started complaining about their boss. "It's dither, dither, dither," sighs one. An aide claims, blithely: "It's like a Shakespearean tragedy. Gordon's not up to the job.""
8. Frictions inside Number Ten: "Mr Brown's advisers at Number 10 are not only fighting like ferrets in a sack, they are also briefing details to the press."
9. Fear of the Tory poll leads: "With the Conservatives enjoying a double-digit lead in the polls, Labour MPs are facing up to political mortality for the first time since 1997."
10. Leadership speculation: "Mr Balls is positioning himself, none too subtly as the "real Labour" candidate by waging war on the admissions policies of faith schools, Mr Purnell is trying to occupy the modernising ground by talking tough on welfare reform, David Miliband is making sure he does not end up in a foreign policy backwater, with speeches on the future direction of the centre-Left. It cannot be long before the Blairite street fighters, Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn, and the champion of the Left, Jon Cruddas, weigh in."

Tory strategists are now hopeful for a hammer blow to Brown on May 1st.  Although they don't want expectations to get too high they believe the campaigns against the 10p tax band and post office closures could produce excellent results for the Tories in May's local elections and in London - where Boris now leads by 13%.  Their hope is that this will produce a wave of panic in Labour ranks.  Despite the disunity in Labour - as detailed by Rachel Sylvester and others - CCHQ is secretly impressed with the extent of Labour unity up until now.  Cracks are now obvious in the Labour dam and the floodwaters may start flowing from 2nd May.

7pm update: Click to enlarge the above picture of Straw and Balls!

51% agree that Brown is a ditherer

That's the good news from a Populus survey for BBC1's Daily Politics.  Asked if they agreed that the Prime Minister was 'indecisive' and a ditherer, 51% agreed and 38% disagreed.  That's a big victory for David Cameron and his repeated attempts at PMQs to paint Mr Brown as unable to take decisions.  For Mr Brown it's a big reversal from last summer when he was seen as strong and commanding.

The other Populus findings concern Northern Rock and they are less encouraging:

• Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling handled the Northern Rock crisis as well as they could under the circumstances... Agree 39%, Disagree 50%
• David Cameron and George Osborne would have handled the Northern Rock crisis better than the Government... Agree 28%, Disagree 52%
• I trust David Cameron and George Osborne more than I trust Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling to take the best decisions on tax and the economy... Agree 39%, Disagree 46%.

Who has just written this?

"You know my trouble? I'm just too generous to the government."

"Forgive me being a little slow but I've only just properly clocked yesterday's revelation that 11,000 illegal immigrants had been permitted to become security guards. Why am I telling you about it now then? Because it's dawned on me just how different these numbers are to what the Home Office claimed they'd be."

Keep reading...

"Weeks ago, when this problem was first announced, I listened hard to the Home Office briefings, I tried hard to treat the news calmly and I calculated hard what the figures might be. On the basis of this guidance - I wrote that "based on the outcome of checks made so far the worst case scenario could be over 8,000... Ministers insist that it is impossible to be more precise than they have been so far since they will only have accurate figures once checks are complete in December and say that 5,000 is still the best estimate at the moment".

Perhaps next time I should not listen to the official guidance and think of a number and then double it!"

The author who is now less willing to listen to the official guidance is...

Nick Robinson, the BBC's Political Editor and probably one of the most important people for a politician to keep sweet.  Any politician with any sense, that is.

Mr Brown doesn't appear to have that basic sense, however.  It's not the first time that he's poked Mr Robinson in the eye.  Remember this?

Brown and Bean

Earlier this week Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell spoke to a Tory gathering and suggested that there might be one or more parallels between Gordon Brown and Mr Bean...

"I have been doing some research on Mr Bean. And there are rather more parallels than you night expect.

First of all, his only friend is a Teddy Bear.   And a Teddy Bear has been the one media diversion over the last few days that has helped distract public attention from Brown’s woes.  May be he should make a bear his mascot?

Then there are the words of this reviewer: “Bean often seems unaware of basic aspects of the way the world works… [Sound familiar?]...  “The humour largely comes from his original and often absurd solutions to any problems and his total disregard for others when solving them, his pettiness and occasional malevolence.”  Now that does ring a bell.

Then there is his fondness for Latin mottos. Brown is proud of his alma mater’s Usque Conabor, which you will all know translates to not “I will cock things up” but to “I shall try to the utmost.”  But I am looking forward to the day when he adopts “Vale homo qui est faba.” You have got it: “Farewell man who is bean."

Related link: Brown as Bean posters

Brown "tainted by sleaze"

An ICM survey for Newsnight suggests that twice as many voters see Gordon Brown as sleazy (57%) as see David Cameron as sleazy (28%).  44% agree with Mr Cameron's PMQs' attack that Mr Brown is not "cut out for the job".  Unfortunately only 41% think the Conservative leader passes his own test.  43% think Mr Cameron the most competent leader and 42% think the same of Mr Brown.

Those LibDems who think Vince Cable should be their leader might have their enthusiasm cooled by the revelation that just 8% think their acting leader is cut out for the job.

8am on 4/12: As our party attempts to present itself as an alternative government - competent and prepared - one of the most important tasks has been given to Francis Maude and Greg Clark - our shadow cabinet office team.  They will oversee the party's implementation office - a unit that will ensure policy ideas are ready to be implemented and not just press released.  The unit will also help to prepare shadow ministers for the responsibilities of office.  At last night's Policy Exchange reception David Cameron was the speaker and he announced that Nick Boles - that think tank's highly-regarded founder and our candidate in Grantham and Stamford - will run the implementation unit.  I hope to write a lot more about this important unit soon and, in particular, the division of responsibilities between the MPs like Francis Maude, who has ministerial experience, and Nick, who doesn't.

The real Labour scandals

The events of recent weeks have turned an 11% Labour lead into an 11% Conservative lead.  In his column today Stephan Shakespeare offers a theory as to which voters are powering this volatility.  He puts it down to those voters who tell pollsters that they are going to vote but aren't really settled in their mind.  In what might be likened to the 'US Convention effect', Stephan postulates that these voters may be disproportionately affected by media froth but that the effect of this froth is not necessarily enduring.

What, in my opinion, Labour deserves to end Labour's period in office is not their failure to manage their own funding - serious as that is - but what they have done to Britain.

Two new reports this morning point to Labour's failure to help the poor.  The number of children living in poverty rose by 100,000 last year. 

Tax changes in Brown's last Budget - that are just about to bite - took money out of the pockets of the poor.

We also learn today that the UK cancer survival rate is no better than Slovenia.

Over the last five years Britain has fallen from third to 19th in the international league table of children's literacy skills.

Yesterday we learnt again about the scale of overstretch in our armed forces.

Dan Hannan made his own must-read list of Labour's starkest failures here.

There has been a history of the British people turning to the Conservatives when the nation is in trouble.  That is likely to be the situation in May 2010 - the likeliest date for this embattled Government to wait for an election.  The challenge over the next two-and-a-half years is to ensure we have the policy tools to meet the challenges that will exist by then.

Adam Boulton: "One does begin to wonder if Gordon Brown is cut out for the top job. He does not have a great deal of natural charisma and at times seems a little, well, plodding."

I can't disagree with Mr Boulton but I'm surprised to read Sky's Political Editor writing it openly.

Mr Brown certainly lost friends in Sky, ITN and the bulk of BBC Westminster when he gave Mr Marr the non-election exclusive.

The week it all went wrong for Gordon Brown

A public row with David Miliband...

Alistair Darling is roasted for the Government's mishandling of Northern Rock...

Darling is back in the Commons to tell the nation that the personal data of 25 million people has been lost...

All of the newspapers turn on Labour for incompetence...

Another Ratner moment for Mr Brown at PMQs as he tries to play politics with 'datagate'...

Government borrowing has reached its annual limit only seven months into the financial year...

Former Defence chiefs mount coordinated attack on Labour underfunding of the armed forces...

New leak of the foot-and-mouth virus has been reported...

MoD's rushed sale of research arm has cost taxpayer tens of millions says National Audit Office...

The number trusting Labour to deal with economic problems collapses from 61% to 28% in two months...

It couldn't have happened to a more deserving man.  I'm sure Tony Blair agrees.  It probably won't be long before there's lots of speculation about Brown's future.

PS Just to rub salt in the wounds, Sky publishes this photo of Mr Brown...

Scary.

Mr Brown can't play within a team, can't pick a team and can't manage a team

One good way of judging any leader is the quality of their appointments.  All of Brown's big appointments are looking suspect.

Most of his 'big tent picks' are backfiring:

• Alan West disagrees with the Government's detention-without-trial plans (before u-turning).
• Lord (Digby) Jones won't take the Labour whip and has failed to vote in 22 of 23 divisions since he was enobled.
• The Spectator reveals that Mr Brown is himself regretting appointing Lord Malloch-Brown to the Foreign Office.

More significant are the failings of Mr Brown's most senior appointments...

• Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has had a terrible fortnight.  David Davis humiliated her in the Commons last week and this week her stock fell further after her attempts to cover-up the extent to which illegal immigrants had been cleared for security jobs were revealed.  In today's Daily Mail Amanda Platell concludes that Ms Smith has no real intellect, courage or integrity.  Brown is desperate to keep The Mail onside and will worry at Ms Platell's judgment.  She is seen as a growing influence on Editor Paul Dacre's thinking.
• Chancellor Alistair Darling has introduced changes to Capital Gains Tax that have upset entrepreneurs in every corner of Britain.  He has even upset leading Brown donor, Sir Ronald Cohen.  Sir Ronald has called for a change of policy.  A deeper problem for Mr Darling is Northern Rock.  Vince Cable asked the right questions at PMQs on Wednesday.  The scale of taxpayer lending to this troubled bank is worryingly high.
• Foreign Secretary David Miliband had to suffer scorn from his own benches during his poor performance in Monday's foreign affairs speech.  In the last twenty four hours he has had to suffer the humilation of Downing Street briefing against him (Martin Kettle writes about it here).  Milibandites are, in turn, suspected of briefing against Malloch Brown to The Spectator.

Mr Brown can neither pick a good team nor manage one.  Peter Oborne writes about Mr Brown's reluctance to seriously back ministers in trouble (Jacqui Smith this week), his eagerness to steal their most high profile work (his decision to give Wednesday's terror plans statement) and his pampering of favoured colleagues (Ed Balls).  Oborne's conclusion:

"[Gordon Brown] was always extremely divisive in Cabinet. He concentrated only on his own successes, and always gave the impression that he did not take pleasure in the achievements of others, even when they benefited the Government.  This narrow and ruthlessly selfish attitude can carry a man or woman right to the top in politics.  But once the summit has been reached, such characteristics undermine those qualities needed for successful leadership.  I very much hope this is not the case with Gordon Brown, but there are some worrying signs. One thing is, however, quite certain.  If he is to restore his increasingly fragile and battered premiership, then he must attend as a matter of extreme urgency to his deeply flawed methods of man management."