A shameless but plucky effort

Cheesy, vacuous – and occasionally brilliant, this was indeed the speech of Gordon Brown’s life. I agree with Fraser and James that this was the product of desperation, its tactics a measure of how bad things have got and how far the PM is willing to go to cling to power. From the appearance of Sarah Brown, Michelle Obama-style, to the implicit dig at Cameron for parading his children, to the eschewing of statistics – ‘that’s not just a number’ – from the driest political statistician of them all, to the hokey soundbite ‘one hope at a time’, this was pure, shameless, vintage political theatre. Cynical as hell, but splendid, too. He won’t go without a fight. He will die with his boots on. Over to you, Labour mutineers.

For James Forsyth’s and Peter Hoskin’s verdicts, scroll to the bottom of this post.