Gordon Brown has taken the time to represent the people of Kirkcaldy in the pages of the New York Times. Like a drunk shouting on a park bench about the apocalypse, Gordon’s new line is that he saved the world but nobody was listening:

“In early October 2008, three weeks after the Lehman Brothers collapse, I met in Paris with leaders of the countries in the euro zone. Oblivious to the global dimension of the financial crisis, they took the view that if there was fallout for Europe, America would be to blame — so it would be for America to fix. I was unable to convince them that half of the bundled subprime-mortgage securities that were about to blow up had landed in Europe and that euro-area banks were, in fact, more highly leveraged than America’s.”

Remember kids, Gordon “not only saved the world, but we saved the banks too.” Yes, the food banks…

That curse must be contagious… 

Via everyone.

Gordon Brown pretends:

“I learnt courage from Nelson Mandela.”

Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander says it was a ‘lack of judgement’, and Ed has written in the Tamil Guardian complaining that Cameron will not boycott this week’s Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka, over the country’s human rights record after two decades of civil war. There is a coordinated attack by the opposition:

Sri Lanka's President is about to become Chair of the Commonwealth. Our PM should take the lead to find someone else. http://t.co/GkW76vsZUN

— Stewart Wood (@StewartWood) November 14, 2013

The former senior adviser on foreign affairs to Gordon Brown turned Miliband right-hand-man seems to have forgotten this one:

“UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown greets President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama at Downing Street, London, ahead of the Commonwealth mini summit”

It’s almost as if Labour want to forget the past. Guido will have more on this subject later…

No wonder the Prime Mentalist has forgotten he is still an MP. In October alone he has declared payments for outside work of £349,501, including for speeches and junkets to Shanghai, Johannesburg, Monaco and New York. As ever Gordon warns the press:

“I am not receiving any money from this role personally. It is being held by the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown for the employment of staff to support my ongoing involvement in public life.”

Presumably that’s the “ongoing involvement in public life” he cannot remember he is still supposed to be doing.

That “office” flies Gordon around the world first class and puts him up in five star hotels, refuses to disclose how much it gives to charity, how much it pays Sarah Brown, how much is sitting in its bank account for when he finally quits. Who does he think he’s kidding…

Parliament has a full schedule this week, so of course Gordon is instead jetting off to a Mexican party town to address a conference on the financial crisis. He has clearly brought the Curse of Jonah with him. Just this week Acapulco has been battered by storms and heavy flooding, if that wasn’t enough CNN reports on its recent “economic devastation”. It is also reportedly set to go bankrupt. Hurricane Jonah strikes again…