How Gordon got into this mess

In the FT this morning, Philip Stephens neatly sums up how Gordon Brown got into this current mess.

There is more to this episode than a miscalculation of the public mood. The story so far of Mr Brown’s premiership has been one of the noise before defeat; of tactics without strategy. It seems an odd thing to say of a politician who has built his career on a reputation as a consummate strategist. But just about everything we have seen since Mr Brown crossed the threshold of Number 10 has been tactical.

Instead of offering fresh policies, the government has preferred to take populist positions. Even as it has publicly eschewed the so-called spin of Mr Blair’s administration, it has shown itself practised in the same dubious arts. Why else would Mr Brown have taken tea with Baronesss Thatcher, the former Tory prime minister; or promised to deliver “British jobs for British workers”? Stephens is also surely right that Brown can not afford to indulge in the same electoral dance of the seven veils as soon as the polls turn in his favour.