The chip on Brown’s shoulder

So the former roadblock is now a born-again reformer – and, like most born-again types, he wants everyone to know about it.  Writing in today’s Guardian, Gordon Brown sells his proposal for a referendum on the alternative vote system as “a rallying call for a new progressive politics.”  And, from there, he gallops through written constitutions, Lords reform and digital democracy.  Watch him go.  

Amid it all, though, I couldn’t help noticing that the PM repeats a key mistake from last year:

“I am inviting the leaders of all parties to engage positively in these debates and back our constitutional reform and governance bill. So far the Conservative leadership have offered soundbites about the price of chips in the Commons canteen, or proposed changes to parliament that would promote their party’s interests. But every time they have been tested on the big issues of reform – from devolution to the future of the hereditary peers – the Tories have been found wanting.”