Skipper

Could this be the moment Gordon 'lost' the election? Mandeslon, desperate to apply soothing balm, insists Brown was only 'letting off steam', but perceptions, in the super-heated atmosphere one week before polling, will embrace much more than that. Brown's gaffereinforced Gordon's:

i) reputation for boorish grumpiness, so well documented in Rawnsley's book and others. Rawnsley makes the point here.

ii) reputation for gaucheness in public- a low level facility with the words which, after all, are a politician's stock in trade.

iii) reputation as a 'typical politician', saying one thing to voters' faces, yet another totally contradictory thing behind their backs.

The Tories must be chortling with disbelief. Just when he should have been scrupulously gaffe-free, he's blown it. if only the plotters had got rid of him last summer.

Finally, Rawnsley offers us some comfort: it could have been worse:

If there is one consolation for Labour, it is that this could have been so much worse. To Justin Forsyth, the long-serving aide at whom the prime minister was venting in the back of car, this would have seemed a very mild example of Grumpy Gordon. Mercifully for Labour, this was not one of the expletive-rich explosions to which he is prone when really frustrated and angry. The microphone did not capture him using the F-word or pummelling the car seat in front of him. On the Brownout Scale of volcanic eruptions this was only a three or four. For that small mercy, at least, Labour can be grateful.