As Brown pushes the government’s overdraft to the point of absolute national penury it is relevant to note that he has been bouncing cheques for decades.  His landlord from his student days told the Telegraph, that when it bounced Brown claimed he must have used the wrong cheque book.

The interest on the national debt is some £1 billion a week…

UPDATE : The cheque is for sale on eBay! The bid is past a grand already.

They must be getting desperate in the Downing Street bunker.  Is Brown changing tactics from spending his last few months in power bashing Etonians?  The persistent 10% poll deficit demands desperate measures.  If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em – or at least look like ‘em. Someone sent him out of the bunker in what looks remarkably like an Old Etonian tie.

He’ll be dreaming up policy on a playing field next…

Gordon Brown said yesterday…

“I have always said that there is such a thing as society and always said also that this is not the same thing as the state”

The curse of Jonah Brown has reached the music world.  After firstly dismissing them as “not very good”, last week Gordon dithered and said he hoped freaky Irish twins Jedward did well. Of course their days were then numbered.

The Tories have just activated this campaign on digital poster sites around the country:

You don’t think that meeting between David Cameron and Simon Cowell last week was about more than Tickets for Troops?  No, they wouldn’t, would they?

Remember the kerfuffle over photographers in the Field of Remembrance on Armistice Day?  Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron have apologised to officials at Westminster Abbey.  Good.  Do you think it is possible for politicians to depoliticise anything?  Perhaps not.

Downing Street confirms.

Brown has always kept his medical problems secret in the past, following that Marr question we were told it was a private matter.  Are we being softened up for a health related stand down?

He has run away from every competitive election he ever faced…

Is he really going to keep his cool in a TV debate?  He says he has made his mind up, so why doesn’t he say if he will do a debate and when he will do a debate?  Dithering won’t make the issue go away…

UPDATE : The Sun says “Brown Goes into TV Meltdown“, the Daily Mail says “Is He Cracking Up?“

He got slaughtered on BBC Breakfast as well:

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By popular demand from the co-conspirators, we will be live blogging the speech (like we do with PMQs)…

UPDATE : 2275 readers left 3943 comments.

It does say at the top of this page “rumours and conspiracy”.  File this theory under conspiracy. Shriti is the most loyal of Brownies, you would expect her to remain in the bunker with the dear leader until the bitter end, so why is she going to a non-existent G20 secretariat job?

Paul Waugh’s cynical thought is:  “has Shriti quit as a minister today because that allows her to continue working for Gordon without actually being covered by ministerial rules?” Thereby avoiding the six month  ‘cooling off’ period before she can take up lucrative private sector jobs come the defeat.  Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Guido’s alternative theory derives from the knowledge that Gordon has always fancied beefing up the international financial architecture, and would crave a legacy of that kind.  Given the disastrous state of the British economy, the idea that he would go to the IMF is laughable, the IMF is more likely to have to come to British shores.  The OECD prefers trained economists who understand econometrics rather than merely how to fiddle the figures.  The World Bank is a possible career direction for Gordon, though it has a focus on project finance and global development.

The G20, if it was beefed up, would provide Gordon with a bolt-hole.  He could spin that he is off to save the world, it includes India, China and Brazil, so lots of very important travel would come with the job.  He could give himself the task of setting up structures to rival the IMF and World Bank.  Give the G20 a remit to review global financial regulation, or as Gordon prefers to call it, the “global financial architecture” and he could save face, busying himself saving the world.

That would solve a huge headache for Mandelson – where to put Gordon before the election – it would appeal to the vanity of the Prime Mentalist, building a global quango allowing him to tell everyone he was “getting on with a big  job”.

The first step would be to send Shriti, his trusted emissary, to lay the groundwork.  Does anyone really believe the Koreans are incapable of taking on the chairmanship of the G20 without the shrieking Shriti’s advice?  Korea is a major developed economy.  They have hosted the Olympics so surely they could organise an agenda and haute cuisine menus for a couple of conference summits and a few photo-ops on their own?

Is the loyal Shriti merely puffing the pillows for a new seat for Gordon at the G20? Do you think Gordon is mentally prepared to courageously face his biggest, in some senses first, electoral test knowing it is doomed.  Will he wish to lead Labour to the greatest swing against the party in electoral history or do you think he will do his  usual Macavity trick?

Last night BBC R4 ran a story line in which had an emotionally unstable and depressed PM on medication going a bit bonkers and undergoing psychotherapy.  Wonder where they get their crazy script ideas?