The search is on for the "Brown Bounce". Everybody seems to be looking out for it. After a period in which the Prime Minister plumbed the depths of unpopularity, each new opinion poll is scrutinised excitedly by the media, ministers and their opponents for signs of a remarkable recovery. So far the most that can be claimed is that the search goes on. Figures suggest the Conservatives retain a diminished [...]

Leadership crises are becoming increasingly common in British politics. One leader or another is threatened by violent storms most of the time. Since the last election Labour has had two leaders and is contemplating a switch to a third. The Liberal Democrats are on their third. After their traumatic defeat in 1997, the Conservatives changed leaders four times in fairly quick succession, their contests being almost a form of therapy, [...]

A single, distinctive observation stands out from the thousands of predictable words written and uttered since Labour's calamitous defeat in the Glasgow East by-election. During a discussion on Channel 4 News, the Scottish National Party campaigner and actress Elaine C Smith declared that she and her colleagues had genuine sympathy for Gordon Brown because they detected an anti-Scottish prejudice in the vitriol being thrown over him.

The comment was made [...]

Step forward Nelson Mandela, Alan Greenspan, Jonathan Sacks and J K Rowling - these are some of the deified people who introduce this selection of Gordon Brown's speeches. Only the Pope is missing from this list of elevated public figures.

Their glowing tributes to the Chancellor make those that are delivered tearfully by winners on Oscar night seem like malevolent onslaughts. The godly superstars hail the Chancellor's vision, humanity and, [...]

I do not trust Chancellors of the Exchequer. No, this is not an attack on Gordon Brown. I believe, in fact, that Brown is the best Chancellor in my political lifetime, and that he has done wonders in implementing Labour's social and economic agendas. However, like every Chancellor I have known since I was elected to the House of Commons 34 years ago, if he can get away with not [...]

Every now and again in this long book, Neil Kinnock, the senior EU commissioner, pops up to give his verdict on Neil Kinnock, the youthful leader of the Labour Party. By the end, he cannot take any more. His last appearance is a note to the author on the final draft of the book: "Sorry this has taken so long . . . my fault. Reading it just depressed me [...]

Mo Mowlam has discovered the Third Way in resignations. She resigns, provokes pages of political obituaries, and she is still in her job. Mowlam's Third Way will climax at this month's Labour Party conference, where she will be rapturously, tearfully received as she bids her farewell. The next day, she will be back at work in the Cabinet Office.

Welcome to another new Labour drama where nothing is quite what [...]

''Bill wants to talk about the euro. Obviously, he will talk about lots of things, but he is especially keen to talk about the euro." That is what I was told in advance of my interview with the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union.

I am wary of such advance briefings at the TGWU. One of Morris's press officers once informed me excitedly that his boss wanted [...]

When is it safe to go on holiday? In June, I returned from a few days away to find that I had missed a war. Admittedly, it was only a "class war" instigated by the Chancellor over a failed Oxbridge application - and, in characteristic fashion, some panic-stricken Blairites were soon declaring that the "war" had never happened in the first place. Gordon Brown's words were of no significance, we [...]

The newspapers have the photo they want this week. The Queen Mother tends to oblige, waving to her nation at the behest of a thousand photographers. There is a problem for the media next week, though. The Blairs have not been so accommodating. There will be no holiday snap this year, and the media are up in arms. "We must have our photo and then we will leave them in [...]