Too little, three days too late

Is Gordon Brown playing catch-up, or is his belated apology over the expenses scandal all part of some cynical plan?  Sure, Cameron dropped the S-word yesterday, so Brown may be scrambling to prevent the Tory leader taking an unassailable lead on the issue.  But it does strike me as odd that he’s waited for the day when Tory expenses are in the spotlight, especially as it was so clearly obvious that some sort of apology was warranted before now.  Could he be slyly suggesting that only the Tory revelations require an apology “on behalf of politicians, on behalf of all parties”; that they’re somehow worse than the Labour ones?  I wouldn’t put it beyond this Prime Minster, who so loves to put dividing lines ahead of democracy.
 
Either way, he can throw his political compass in the bin, to rest alongside the battered moral one.  You feel an instant apology, last Friday, was necessary for a leader so recently compromised by both Smeargate and the Gurkha vote.