Gordon invited himself at the last moment onto Alastair Darling’s trade trip to India. Obviously it will provide a few good photo-ops but a happy by-product is that it will get him out of one photo-op that he now deems best avoided.

Invitations were sent out from: “The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Master of the Royal Mint” to a reception tonight at the Scotland Office. Alas, he has decided to be on a plane to India at the time of the event.

The party was on the occasion of the issuing by the Royal Mint of the new commemorative £2 coin. It was to be a celebration of the Treaty of Union of England and Scotland, but the pictures would have looked very Scottish in the English press wouldn’t they? Brown of course supports the English football team and is British. 80% of voters are in England and the polls say they are increasingly sympathetic to freedom from and for Scotland…