As Cameron suggested after Brown boasted about his economic savvy during Prime Minister's Questions: 'Only this Prime Minister could be so smug on the day 140,000 people have lost their jobs.' Is Brown too big for his boots? He wasn't so confident in October 2007 when he cancelled a general election.
Having just returned from a week on the east coast of Scotland I witnessed first hand a very particular kind of 'pleased with himself' Scotsman. Brown has it, Alex Salmond has it, Alex Ferguson has it. They think their moodiness is admirable, and they come over all stag-like and Braveheart. It's quite amusing until you realise this particular jock put us in this mess to begin with.
Brown is an arrogant, angry man who has surrounded himself with attending courtiers. He considers himself complicated in a good way, the brooding academic, recently comparing himself to Bronte's Heathcliff. He resembles more the sinister farm hand Jud Fry in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma.
Of course class is involved; Brown will not have Kirkcaldy High and Edinburgh University losing to Eton and Oxford. Never has a Prime Minister hated the Leader of the Opposition like this before - Heath felt very little for Wilson, Gladstone disliked Disraeli, but this is more personal.
Whenever the Tories say anything about the economy they are accused of meddling with Brown's big financial rescue plan. Brown and co will carry on with these accusations to look like the saviours of the economy and make the Conservatives look churlish. On a recent trip to the Arab Emirates, photos appeared of Brown boarding a plane with his nemesis Peter Mandelson. What do these two talk about in executive waiting suites: the thread count of the linen, the above average plane food? Every time Brown looks pleased remember the unemployment toll and the shifty creature he has turned to, to make everything better.
- Tara Hamilton-Miller is a political adviser and formerly worked for the Conservative Party press team
