You couldn't make it up:

Gordon Brown has the economy as his "sole focus," does he? Then he should just take over from Alastair Darling as Chancellor.

Plans for Brown Force One have been scrapped. The go-ahead for these was one of the last things that Tony Blair did as Prime Minister, yet it has taken Gordon Brown not far off a year to decide to cancel the order.

It was nothing more than an expensive status symbol, with no real point or benefits. It is a very good thing that this waste of our money has been stopped, but questions have to be asked about why it took so long for the decision to be made.

The nationalised of Northern Rock is to be shrunk to half its size, with thousands of jobs being axed, due to EU competition rules.

I thought the idea of the nationalisation was to prevent thousands losing their jobs through the inevitable slimming down that any private purchaser would enact?

Why didn't Brown and Darling think of the EU rules before they decided on nationalisation? Or did they just not look through it properly - despite the length of time they took to come to a decision?

Seems like the next queue won't be outside Northern Rock, but ex-Northern Rock outside the Job Centre.

A Labour government planning to axe thousands of jobs in a nationalised bank primarily based in the north of England. You couldn't make it up.

The first Budget in a decade will be made today by a politician who is not Gordon Brown. Well, at least that's the plan. But we all know that, in reality, Alastair Darling is just a wooden puppet, controlled by strings. He may jump up and down and proclaim that he is "a real boy Chancellor", but we all know the truth.

What do you want to see from the Budget? The one thing we won't get is any tax cuts - heaven forbid we be allowed to keep any of our money! - or even a freeze on certain things, such as alcohol, which is inevitably to be a victim of this budget considering its current whipping-boy status in politics. Iain Dale has a list of the top ten lines the wooden puppet Alastair Darling definitely won't say. More's the pity.

Last year's budget was boring, and backfired. What will the result be this year? Probably more of the same. But I will be keeping an eye on accountancy firm KPMG's budget website for comprehensive analysis - especially since they think that the budget will "see the fiscal rules being bent, if not outright broken and/or rewritten".

Should be interesting.

PS: Does anyone else find it ironic that they call it a "budget" when all they're limited by is how much money they can take from us?

They wanted one a while ago. Now they may well have one, with the nationalisation of Northern Rock.

But this Clause 4 is the other kind of "moment". The death knell for any claims they may have of economic competence. A Clause 4 in reverse.

They are in fact now changing the Clause 4 back to the old one, in practice if not in words.

From the meaningless:

Back to the unworkable:

Gordon Brown apparently gets his ideas from Saturday night TV, saying that he is inspired by "unlocking talent". Back he when he first became Prime Minister [remember that time? I never thought a time would come when Tony Blair would seem like a good PM.] he made a big song-and-dance about recruiting "independent talent" into his government. But mostly they've either been useless, contradictory, or just plain invisible since.

So his plan now appears to be to "unlock" the talents of his young Cabinet ministers.

If that's the best he come up with, then, well... good luck with that.

After all, he's spent the last decade trying to make his name on economic competence as Chancellor, yet Tony Blair is the one getting all the high-paid business jobs in the financial sector!

And to add insult to injury, according to the Telegraph "[v]oters pin [their] financial hopes on David Cameron".

Gordon Brown really must be feeling sick.

Watch the video of Hague's hilarious demolition of Gordon Brown in his speech on the EU (Amendment) Bill below [via Harry Hook].

Or read the text here at Daily Referendum.

Even Miliband can't help from laughing!

Gordon Brown's "huge bovine features" have thwarted attempts to find a look-a-like for him. To be honest, if I looked like Brown I'd be hidden in some cave somewhere and refusing to come out...

Not only are his closest allies telling Brown that he time is very nearly up, but so is the electorate.

So 48% agree that the next government should be a Conservative one. Also, 51% to 31% regard David Cameron as the more likeable of the party leaders, and that Cameron "has a big lead in every demographic and region except Scotland, where Mr Brown is narrowly ahead (by 46 per cent to 43 per cent)." That's a big lead in every demographic and region except Scotland.

This surely is very bad news for the future of Gordon Brown and this Labour government. But a very very good news for the Conservatives.

Image nicked from Guido

You know you're in deep shit when not only your enemies, but even your closest friends are telling you that you're going to lose:

The full Fabian editorial is here.

The problem for Gordon Brown is that he has already had several opportunities to tell us his "vision" - immediately after he took over, at the Labour party conference, the Queen's Speech... yet he has failed miserably ever time. Thus we just have to ask, does he even have a vision for Britain - or even for what his government is to do next week?

But what do the Fabians think that Gordon Brown needs to do to start his "fightback"?

Firstly, a period of calm to restore stability is needed. A twelve year old government can not win on competence alone. But it is an essential foundation.
Secondly, party funding reform and an elected second chamber are now essential for a clean break. (Fabian Society)

Of course, this ignores that this government has hardly had twelve years of competence, but far closer to the opposite. And that Labour have hardly demonstrated an interest in real transparent funding or an elected second chamber! The Fabians view of party funding, however, is that "state funding is necessary" - which, of course, it isn't.

The most important thing that this article is saying is that not only are the Conservatives "favourites to win the next general election" but that Brown has failed rather miserably since taking over - and even the Labour Party have to acknowledge that fact. What matters now is whether Brown has - and can express - a political "vision".

What would Gordon Brown's letter to Santa read like? DuSanne has a sneak peek...

Go read the rest.

So Gordon Brown has signed the EU Constitution "Reform Treaty" today, even if several hours after everyone else had. But the point I want to make here doesn't rely on whether you are pro, anti, or ambivalent towards the treaty, or whether you support parliament or the people deciding whether or not we should sign up to it.

The point is simple: why has Brown - or any other national leader - signed the treaty before it has been ratified?

Whether you think that parliament or the people should vote on it, they have not yet, so why has it been signed? What right does any government have to sign this sort of treaty [or any sort of treaty] before it has been ratified? Until the vote has been cast, the outcome cannot be known. It can be guessed, but not known.

You could claim that Brown's signature was signalling the intent of the current British government to push for ratification of the treaty, but you would be wrong. Intent can be signalled by means other than a signature on the bottom of a document.

As Brown has already signed Britain up to the EU Constitution "Reform Treaty", what can he do if parliament declines to ratify it? Say "oops, anyone got any Tippex?" Simply, signatures should be applied to a treaty only after it has been ratified. No matter how you believe it should be ratified, if you claim to be a democrat then you can't support this.

Sources: BBC, The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian