Andy Marr is quoted on the front page of the Daily Telegraph as saying: “I thought very carefully about asking the question. So many people in the Westminster village and beyond are talking about it that it seemed to me a fair question to ask.”

By way of counter-attack Peter Mandelson is throwing accusations about “We have seen out there on the Internet, the blogosphere, all these extreme right-wing people trying to put these smears and rumours about…” Of course in private emails, as we know from reports he never denied, Mandelson drips his own poison “Gordon has developed fewer ways of masking and managing his insecurities… He is a self-conscious person, physically and emotionally. He is not as comfortable with his own skin as, say, Tony was (is).” Hardly a ringing endorsement from Mandy of Brown’s state of mind.

It is the unchanged, firmly held and often stated view of this blog that Gordon is manifestly a weirdo.  In the words of Alastair Campbell, the master of making the political personal, Gordon is “psychologically flawed”…

Note to editors : It was not this blog that was the first widely read publication to refer to the specific pill-popping-PM allegation.  The laurels belong to the Indy’s Matthew Norman, it was only then followed up here (“Who Will Ask the Prime Minister?“).  Andy Grice, the Indy’s political editor might want to correct his front page story accordingly and give credit where credit is due.