Stop Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown’s friends have launched a shameless effort to compel the government into nominating him for the IMF post. The government would be mad if they did. Mad. This is not about petty score-settling, as yesterday’s Evening Standard would have it. This is about qualifications to lead, and the former Prime Minister, despite his intellect, does not have those skills. He led the country to ruin and remains in denial about it: he saved the world, don’t cha know.

The UK should be smarter about using talent from across the House, but there are limits. And it is a bit rich for the ex-PM’s friends to argue that David Cameron should back him. This is the man who gave lukewarm support to Paddy Ashdown’s candidacy to run the UN in Kabul back in 2008. A shrug of the shoulders is all he could muster when Hamid Karzai objected to the British peer.