Brown a serial shagger? Surely not.

Martin Kettle in Saturday's Guardian says that "over and again this month " he has met politicos who are "blindsided" by "Brown's indecisiveness". The question being asked is why someone who so assidiously sought the premiership now seems uncertain about what to do with it (Recalling Robert Redford's question at the end of The Candidate: "Now what do we do?"). Supporters and opponents of Blair are "equally mystified". One "Labour veteran" calls it "The What's It All About Alfie? question". One "cruel" (and rather unlikely) theory is that he "has always feared being Prime Minister more than he craved it".

A lot of truth in this, I think. My diagnosis is that Brown is excessively preoccupied with tactical manoeuvres designed to wrong-foot the Tories. Goats is an opportunist tactic (which will back-fire). So was allowing election speculation to grow (which has back-fired). 56 days and ID cards are about being "tougher" than the Tories. Raising the inheritance tax threshold was a transparently tactical response to Osborne. Brown is as obsessed with spin as was Blair, but without the communication skills.

I'm not sure that someone who can only see out of one eye should bang-on about "vision" quite so much as Brown does, but a little vision might be a good thing...