Where have all the Brownites gone?

I’m just out of a More4 studio debating Brown with Francis Beckett, author of a very good (and, to my mind, under-appreciated) biography of the Dear Leader. He’ll carve a niche for himself, I thought, being the talking head supporting Brown over his two remaining years in power. But even he struggled to say that Brown is cut out for office – or that he is decisive. He wanted to be supportive, but Brown as a PM? Even he didn’t seem to see it.

Producers who set up these TV pundit debates often moan about the problem of balancing them. It’s getting harder and harder to find anyone not on his payroll saying “actually, he’s a good man doing a good job”. And he’s not even a year into the job. Have all his supporters really evaporated so soon?