The worst thing about this is not that Gordon Brown appeared on American Idol, it’s that he spent the whole broadcast doing that horrible new fake smile of his. Eeeargh! It gives me the willies.

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Well, I seem to be all right. As a public transport-using, non-smoker on a decent wage who is a moderate drinker, I suspect I’ll be the beneficiary of the 2p income tax cut overall (although the devil is always in the detail). But it doesn’t look as if too many people will be particularly happy with this year’s budget.

More here.

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The row brewing within the Labour Party over whether or not to withdraw the whip from the IWannaReferendum Three is an interesting one.

Predictably, over at Iain Dale’s gaffer, the cries are all “Stalinist!” even after I pointed out that the only party to withdraw the whip over a vote on a treaty referendum is the Conservative Party and FedUp reminded them about Howard Flight. Field, Hooey and Stuart are being hailed as giants and giantesses of political stature.

But hang on a minute. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with their stance, they are supporting a campaign that is actively campaigning against Labour MPs in marginal seats. In the case of Stuart, she is a member of the advisory group which presumably agreed that strategy.

And what is Iain’s view of rebels who happen to believe in something he doesn’t share? Like Clare Short?

If I were a Labour supporter I would be furious at the kick in the teeth she has administered to the Party which made her.

The gulag was too good for her - but what’s the difference?

A couple of footnotes. I observed two weeks ago that IVantToBiteYourFinger.com had just 35,000 signatures on it - in six months they got 5,000 fewer signatures than the Independent got in a month for electoral reform. Now it has 36,000 signatures - this is not a campaign that is going anywhere.

Back in September I predicted that Gordon Brown had a strategy aimed at boring the public to death on Europe. Despite the fact that events took a life of their own regarding the early election - and a May poll is obviously right out now - I stand by the bore-us theory and as far as I can see it’s working (why are the Tories floundering in the polls at the moment just as the Lib Dems and Labour are rallying?).

And before we get too chummy with Labour, we should remember this report by Frank Field of what Hoon has been saying about what the Eurosceptics tactics should be:

“The chief whip suggested we should instead campaign in Liberal seats. I am happy to take that idea on board. I am in the business of ensuring that Labour fulfils its manifesto pledge.”

I’m not sure what’s worse - Hoon’s “principled” stance or his understanding of basic strategy (bear in mind this man sent thousands of troops into Iraq).

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You have to wonder sometimes if there might be some guile behind Gordon Brown’s apparent ineptitude.

Take last night’s remark about Peter Hain’s incompetence. A spectacular gaffe? Or, given that we have PMQs tomorrow and the strong likelihood that Cameron will not be able to resist the temptation to make something of it, is it a ploy to make his opponent look stupid.

Because as Lib Dem Voice has pointed out, Cameron has recently demonstrated a bit of “incompetence” himself. Handled correctly, and assuming Cameron falls for it, Brown could use this to devastating effect.

On the other hand, knowing Brown’s past form, he is more likely to fall flat on his face. But we’ll know in an hour.

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Millennium reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while now.

The Ministry of Justice’s Governance of Britain initiative now has a logo (pictured). Is it my imagination or does it look rather like an airstrip?

Given Gordon Brown’s avowed Atlanticism and scandalous adoption of Son of Star Wars by press release, is this the sign of things to come, perhaps?

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Gordon Brown has finally got around to making a speech on the environment. The beef?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said there will be a “green hotline” to advise people on what they can do to cut their impact on the environment.

There is something about the word “hotline” that will be forever associated with John Major, partially because it is the only thing anyone can remember about his premiership. Not sure this was the wisest decision of Dr Brown ever.

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I find this quite perplexing:

‘Gordon is trying to build up a systematic argument in a slow burn,’ one cabinet minister said. ‘If you talk about Britain’s, and his, commitment to liberty, then you provide a context for further debates about issues such as 90 days [for detention without charge.] It is a new approach. Under Tony, the 90-day idea came out of nowhere.’ A change on detention without charge - doubling the current limit of 28 days to 56 - is likely to be signalled in the Queen’s Speech once Brown’s message on liberty has been digested.

So, basically, Brown is paying lip service to Britain’s deep commitment to liberty in order to destroy it? And this is presented by an unnamed cabinet minister as clever politics? Where has Labour’s moral compass gone?

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I’ve been terribly uninspired about what to write about on this blog recently. What more is there to say about Gordon’s brown trouser moment? I’m dreadfully bored of it to tell you the truth.

The one thing that has interested me is that the narrative that is emerging is that Cameron has emerged from this in a strong position, with Gideon Osborne’s tax announcements being hailed as genius. This does rather smack of the same self-delusion and hubris that felled Brown. The only thing the Tories achieved last week was to squeak about a couple of modest policy announcements and to avoid a meltdown. The former is, admittedly, not something we have heard from them in literally years while the latter was a remarkable turn of events given the last 15 years, but what seems to be getting forgotten is that their current standing in the polls is no less a post-conference bounce than Labour’s was last week.

Something tells me that they’ll be back to their fun and games in no time. Jim Knight’s announcement about Grammar School ballots is calculated to engineer a Tory split. Perhaps it is too calculating and will thus fail to launch, but it is based on a sound premise: the Tory capacity for internecine warfare over minor issues is without limit. Sooner or later they will bite, and the party itself has already asserted its dominance over its weak and vacillating leader. Expect a few more lurches to the right over the next few months.

Anyway, blah blah blah, you’ve heard it all before no doubt. Apols for being so boring. But really, have you seen the material I’ve got to work with here? Good grief! I’m out of ideas - if you want me to blog about something, make a suggestion in the comments. Otherwise, all you’ll be getting is reviews of Buffy comics and 2000AD. You have been warned. Ta.

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Ever since I heard about Gordon Brown’s decision to call off an autumn ballot, I’ve been thinking of Helen, the runner up of Big Brother Series 2. Famously, for the proverbial 15 minutes at any rate, Helen liked blinking. Well, Gordon Brown has just given it a go and I get the feeling he doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like it at all.

And yet. And yet. Reading Jeremy Hargreaves’ piece on the tragedy of Cameron has got me thinking. While Gordon Brown’s nods and winks about a November poll have successfully united the Tory party and given them a good week at a time when we were expecting them to tear each other apart, they have coalesced in traditional Tory territory. Their one commitment on environmental issues, a levy on planes to replace the passenger duty, essentially means that the Tories have caught up, puffing and wheezing, with where the Liberal Democrats were in 2004. Back then, as a member of the Green Liberal Democrats exec, I can assure you that we were deeply concerned at the lack of solid commitment the party had to environmental issues. If that’s the best Cameron can do, he ought to drop the act that he takes the issue of climate change seriously; no-one’s buying, least of all Zac Goldsmith (who, following his sulk last week, ought to claim the mantle of Quiet Man from IDS).

My prediction last week that by not holding an election now, Brown will force the Tories to bore the public to death on the topic of Europe still holds. The Tory front bench have now as good as given their rottweillers a green light to bonkers over the IGC this month and the genie cannot be put back in its bottle. Whether he likes it or not, Cameron’s own party will now force him to make Europe a big deal in the election.

The process of rejecting Cameronism, which started with the Grammar schools debacle in the summer (”Grammar streaming”? Snarf!!), is now complete: Cameron is now a slave to his party. A couple of years ago, he was really quite scary and seemed to truly capture the zeitgeist. Now he just looks like another posh boy.

But Brown hasn’t got off lightly either. In truth, his tarnish started to come off with the stunt last month when he invited Thatcher round for tea: it was horribly effective but about as subtle as a brick and we all knew it. Back then it became apparent that Brown was just as careful a spinner as his predeccessor; now it is undeniable. The honeymoon period is now over; he too now looks as if he has feet of clay.

That the Labour and Tory leaders are mortal may not appear to be that big a revelation, but when you remember that this is the main criticism levelled against Ming Campbell, you begin to realise that it represents a real opportunity for the Lib Dems. We’ve all been taken down a peg or two since 2005; from now on politics will have a little less effervescence and be a little more substantial. In my humble opinion, all the boring, dry work that Campbell and his colleagues have been doing to make the Lib Dems serious players in terms of policy and positioning now has a chance to pay off. He still needs to sort out his press operation (kudos to whoever for getting the Campbell comment on Brown’s bottle out before Cameron, although I note now that the BBC has now relegated Campbell’s comment in the way it always does - thank God we can rely on Iain Dale to confirm how slow the Tories were out of the starting blocks), but if we can just sort that out, I’m confident we have now turned a corner.

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I think the answer to that one must be a Big Yes:

An ICM poll for the Guardian newspaper indicates the gap has narrowed to just one per cent compared to seven per cent a month ago.

It follows two other surveys which suggest Labour’s lead has dropped to four and three percentage points.

The word hubris springs to mind. What I don’t understand is why people put so much faith into opinion polls. Before Brown took over, all the signs were that he wasn’t going to do Labour any good at all. Labour got all excited and read way too much into the subsequent rallying in their poll figures and started plotting an election campaign. Now, with that gap narrowed, going into a General Election looks like lunacy. But having hyped it up to an unbearable degree for the best part of a month, can they afford not to go?

On balance, and I’m willing to be proven wrong here, I still think they will err on the side of caution. Although walking away from a snap election will make Labour look very silly indeed, there are simply too many known unknowns out there for them to want to risk it. The IGC could get out of control, at least a million people will be disenfranchised (and that’s assuming everything else runs smoothly), the Tories are rallying, in any case Tory supporters are more likely to turn out at a time of year where the weather is likely to be poor and the sun will be setting before most people get home from work and the “big mo” argument is now out of the window.

What all this does hail however is the end of Brown’s honeymoon period. It won’t be so easy for him from now on and the media do not forgive vanity (for that is what going for an early poll was) lightly. The irony is, if Labour had played down speculation about an early poll, the Brown Bounce could possibly have continued long into the winter.

So if he doesn’t now go for an early election, he’ll come out of it looking damaged. If he does go for an early election, he’ll come out at least as damaged and possible worse.

Can we return to normal politics again? First item on the agenda: fixed term parliaments.

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