What Brown is doing

Martin Kettle has a typically astute piece in The Guardian this morning. Kettle argues that Brown is trying to pull off the Sarkozy trick of demonstrating that the best, new government is an improved and refreshed version of the old one; enough change to be different but not enough to scare the horses. Kettle also does us all a service by putting today’s poll numbers in context:

“Today's 39% Labour rating will energise a party that has not stood so high in the polls for nearly two years, but 39% would have been Labour's second lowest rating throughout the eight years from John Smith's death to the run-up to Iraq.”