Gordon pleads for one last chance from the girls

Melissa Kite says that the PM is ill at ease with female colleagues. No surprise that it was the women — Blears, Flint, Kennedy — who rebelled while the men hid under the table

Remember the Brown Bounce? Yes, there really was one. It was back in September 2007 and Gordon was riding high on a wave of popularity. Honestly, I’m not making this up.

A YouGov poll gave the Prime Minister a commanding 11-point lead over the Tories after his appeal to traditional values at the Labour party conference. What’s more, among women voters the Labour lead was an astonishing 16 per cent — 16 per cent! Mr Brown must have fevered dreams about that now. Wavy graphs with red lines soaring above blue lines must drift past him in his sleep like Homer Simpson dreaming about beer. Acres of coverage were generated in that week about how Gordon’s serious, competent manner was a hit with women.