Rattled, hoarse and angry, Gordon Brown did not look a happy man at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. Small wonder: it is only weeks since his clunking fist was pounding the Tories into submission. Now, he has allowed himself to be caricatured as a clucking chicken, as fearful of an election as he is of an EU referendum. ‘How long are we going to have to wait till the past makes way for the future?’ David Cameron asked — and the PM had no convincing reply.
It may be true that Mr Brown’s decision not to go to the country this November will fast fade from public memory, and that the nickname ‘Bottler Brown’ and the jokes about ‘bottle banks’ will not last. But the impression of the Prime Minister as a diminished, hesitant and defensive figure is likely to prove more durable.
Mr Brown’s greatest coup in his first few weeks was to appear new and fresh: in pollsters’ jargon, ‘to be the change’.
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