Gordon Brown gradually begins to see sense

It took him a long time. The Prime Minister is beginning to recognise the damage done to the economy by all this "leveraging". He is now in a position where limited words would help. He has been saying that he saw the recession coming, but that doesn't sit so well with his past performance. It is more fantasy than downright lying, but Gordon Brown's first objective in 1997 was to unseat the grinning imposter settled in next door at No.10. His second was to stoke the economy with funny money so that sycophantic Labour MPs could go into TV studios to say that we had the best chancellor ever! Now it's all come crumbling down.

He still blames others ("it all started in America"), but, unless he had cloth ears for the past year and a half, he would have known that this cuckoo economy was going to crash. Is there a New Labour version of Monopoly? Someone should get one out soon, if not!

Brown has decided to tour the country. "It is more important than ever for us to talk to people right across the country about what they are going through". My heart bleeds! Crocodile's crying comes to mind. I heard Sir Stuart Rose and Simon Wolfson on the Today programme this morning. Perhaps it might not be a bad idea to replace Brown and Darling with them and get some real progress in tackling this crisis.

Personally, I have no confidence in this tour unless people tell it as it is. Then it will be a case of burnt ears replacing the cloth ones.