Mr Brown’s Trip to Washington

Poor Gordon Brown. Yes, really. The expectations for his visit to Washington this week could not have been framed more unkindly. It’s as though the Prime Minister has been set up to fail. His enemies in the press will not mind this, but his friends’ talk has not helped either. The less hype this visit, and this speech to Congress, received, the better it would have been for Brown. Then he might have been able to surprise everyone. Instead, there’s been all this nonsense about Brown being, in a BBC News reporter’s phrase, “sprinkled” with Obama’s “rhetorical stardust”. Yes really to that too.

Normal people hear this sort of guff and think “who do you think you are kidding?”. Then again, they can’t help it, can they? According to Ben Brogan “one person who has seen the draft has suggested to Mr Brown that he needs to find his inner Obama.”