When the going got tough, Gordon Brown would pull his favourite Macavity trick and disappear. It seems his prodigy Ed Balls has learnt exactly the same trick. There has been a lot of grumbling over the weekend in Labour circles that the Shadow Chancellor all but disappeared in the wake of the local election results and was silent on the airwaves, leaving the mop up to the likes of Chuka and Tom Watson. He managed to Tweet his congratulations to the new MP for South Shields, but apart from that has stuck to local issues in his seat and talking about Shepherd’s Pie. His absence has been noted by more loyal colleagues…

How refreshingly honest of the Prime Mentalist to admit that his abandoned constituents are “hard-pressed and increasingly angry”. Gordon’s last question about Dalgety Bay left him with egg on his face, and yesterday he was embarrassed again by Defence minister Andrew Robathan:

“I will explain why we dispute much of what the right hon. Gentleman has said in a moment, but there is one thing that I particularly dispute. I know that when he was Prime Minister, and indeed when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was very profligate with public money.

He was very willing to spend it, and then to leave us in the appalling financial condition in which we now find ourselves. I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that we take a rather more parsimonious and sensible view than I think he did when it comes to the spending of our constituents’ money… In closing, may I say how pleased I am to see the right hon. Gentleman in the House?”

Makes you wonder why he bothers…

Best wishes to the Prime Mentalist as he turns 62 today. Twelve months without speaking in Parliament, £6,000 and more on air fares at our expense, £300,000-a-month in cash that is definitely not paid to him, an attendance record to be ashamed of, landing his successor in it, not to mention the worst of omens for His Holiness.

And that’s forgetting Gordon’s Olympic nightmare and his – shall we say – awkwardness at the Leveson Inquiry. To celebrate, why not enjoy his greatest hits one more time…

Last year the jet-setting Prime Mentalist came under fire for blowing taxpayers’ cash on flights from Scotland to London. Though most Scottish MPs take the train south of the border, Guido learns that over just a three-month period last summer Brown claimed almost £6,000 on expenses for air travel from Scotland to the capital. That despite not speaking in the House for a year.

Incidentally, in the last month he has declared over £320,000 in cash from speeches and advisory work that definitely goes to towards the full running costs of his office, and the rest he totally gives away to charity. With his once loyal lieutenants twisting the knife today and running for the hills, isn’t it time Gordon took the hint?  

Rare sighting of Gordon Brown (Retired) MP [PICTURE] http://t.co/gOA4ziW7—
Eye Spy MP (@eyespymp) January 29, 2013

Nice of the Prime Mentalist to show up for a vote concerning him keeping his own seat rather than, you know, speaking on the budget or a matter of national security.

How good it was of the Prime Mentalist to turn up yesterday. Here is one he will no doubt want to skip however: the Great Gordon Brown Repeal bill is to be debated in Parliament next week. The proposal to reverse Labour’s scrapping of the 10p tax rate will be discussed by MPs at 2:30pm next Tuesday. Guido hears Gordon will be receiving a formal invitation…

Guido has always said the best way to provide a living wage to the lowest earners is to cut tax rather than raise the minimum wage. Campaigning Tory MP Rob Halfon has launched a new petition to reverse the last government’s scrapping of the 10p tax rate, aptly calling it the Great Gordon Brown Repeal Bill. As if by perfect timing the Prime Mentalist will be speaking in Parliament for the first time in over a year next week. You can sign the petition against him here…

It has been a month to be proud of our globe-trotting former Prime Mentalist. Not only did he manage to make it a year since he last spoke in Parliament but he has also declared over £300,000 in December’s Register of Members’ Interests, all held by the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown and not going into his own pocket, of course. While Kirkcaldy goes unrepresented those lucky enough to have Gordon grace them with his presence include the Chinese, Koreans, Americans and Ukrainians. The total £305,037 declaration for the last month is for sixteen hours’ work, or £19,064-an-hour. More than many of his constituents earn in a whole year.

A letter has gone out from the Tories to Ed Miliband calling for the Labour leader to sack his former boss. Brown is jet-setting around the world, refusing to speak up for those he is paid £65,000-a-year of taxpayers’ money to represent, while earning vast sums of money that is being “held” by his company to “support (my) ongoing involvement in public life”. Surely it is time for that “public life” to be lived away from the House of Commons…

Hold the front page: Gordon Brown is speaking in Parliament today. And why is the jet-setting Prime Mentalist gracing us with his presence? He’ll be speaking in a debate on Scottish independence, but don’t let that fool you. The only reason Gordon is speaking, today of all days, is that he somehow got wind of the huge celebrations planned tomorrow to mark the one year anniversary of the last time he spoke in the House. That’s right, the last time Brown spoke in Parliament was on the 30th November 2011. His utter contempt for serving Parliament and his constituents knows no bounds…

Any whisper of greenshoots will be wiped out at 14:30 GMT when Jonah Brown rings the bell at the New York Stock Exchange:

“On Tuesday, September 25, Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and former UK Prime Minister, and his wife Sarah Brown, founding Chair of the Global Business Coalition for Education will visit the New York Stock Exchange and ring The Opening Bell. In his capacity as UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Mr. Brown is joining with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the UNGA this week to launch Education First, a UN initiative to put education on top of the development agenda.”

Arrrrrgh…

UPDATE: Oh no: