Brown meets the press

The main news coming out of Gordon Brown’s monthly news conference is that nationalising Northern Rock is now clearly under serious consideration, with Brown and Alistair Darling both stressing that all options are on the table. The other notable thing was how Brown kept banging on about ‘the spirit of Christmas’ in, what came across on television, as a rather over the top fashion. One of the New Year’s resolutions for Brown’s media team must be to find a way of humanising him and allowing him to demonstrate some warmth and humour in a way that comes across as natural.

PS Bob Marshall-Andrews, who’d be disloyal to himself if he was Prime Minister, has come up with the most comprehensive take yet on the idea of Brown as a tragic Shakespearian figure, telling Michael White that Brown

‘has the jealousy of Othello, the indecision of Hamlet, the futile rage of Lear and, like Brutus, he goes to the wrong people for advice.’