Alastair Campbell: Brown should have taken Cameron up on his offer of talks over expenses

Interesting post from Alastair Campbell on this scandal:

“A few weeks ago, when the expenses row was simmering not boiling, David Cameron suggested to Gordon Brown that he and Nick Clegg (the leader of the Liberal Democrats) get together and try to work out a new system.

Of course there may have been politics in there. He is the Leader of the Opposition after all. But in hindsight, it might have been a good move.” Brown has got the politics of this whole issue horribly wrong. He waited way too long to address it then did so in a way that was bound to alienate the opposition parties and his own backbenchers. His behaviour in the meeting with Clegg and Cameron that followed his YouTube disaster seems to have had the effect of making relations between the two opposition leaders much warmer. It’s yet another fine mess that Gordon has got himself into.