David Miliband is playing a dangerous game. Not because Gordon Brown might sack him for daring to present himself as an appealing and articulate rival for the top job – he knows the prime minister is in too weak a position to do that. But because if he falters a second time, having decided against a challenge last year, then he's unlikely to be given a third chance.

His Guardian article and subsequent statements and interviews will be read by Labour MPs and activists as a clear attempt to set out his stall ahead of a possible autumn leadership election. If the foreign secretary didn't want people to come to that conclusion he could have gone off on holiday and put his mind to how he can best help Gordon Brown turn things around. Instead he chose to strengthen his own standing as the leader in waiting.

Yes, he left himself some wriggle room, but precious little. He could turn round at the party conference and remind us all that he said on July 30 that Brown was a 'good' leader who 'can' lead Labour into the next election and win. Journalists would scoff, but far more damagingly his many supporters in the party would feel let down and start to look for a new standard bearer.
At times Miliband can be an awkward media performer, but he handled a difficult situation, albeit one of his own making, with great skill. That won't be lost on Labour MPs either. They know from sorry experience how dreadful Gordon Brown looks when he's trying to avoid a question he doesn't want to answer. It's a skill a successful politician has to master and Miliband showed how to do it.

The killer phrase in his Guardian article was: "I disagreed with Margaret Thatcher, but at least it was clear what she stood for." In other words, Gordon might invite her to Number 10 and even hint at a state funeral, but I can offer a bit of her magic: strong, clearly defined leadership. Ever since becoming foreign secretary Miliband has been setting out a thoughtful critique of why Labour is doing badly and what it needs to do to show itself to be relevant and worth re-electing. It's all there in his speeches, articles and interviews. He wants his vision to be a challenge to David Cameron because that is where the real fight lies. And the party is desperate for somebody to start knocking the Tory leader around a bit. But it's a challenge to the other leadership hopefuls, too. Harriet Harman has shown she can win in Labour's electoral college, but where is her vision? If there is a leadership election this year Ed Balls, James Purnell and Alan Johnson would equally have a lot of running to do to catch up.

Miliband did his chances of succeeding a lot of good today. But he came close to boxing himself in to a fully-fledged challenge. Harold Wilson said "most of politics is presentation and what isn't is timing". Miliband would surely reject such a cynical view, but he knows he can't afford to get his timing wrong. All the available evidence suggests he thinks his time is now.

Before John Major imploded and Tony Blair turned British politics on its head, it used to be said that loyalty was the Conservative party’s secret weapon. Since 1997 that weapon has been firmly in new Labour’s hands, but this weekend it is legitimate to ask whether loyalty to the leader isn’t a weapon more likely to do self-harm than to damage our opponents.

For some months serious Labour people – not the sort to be panicked by a short-term reversal of fortunes – have concluded with regret that Gordon Brown is not only incapable of leading the party to victory at the next election but that he may well lead us to a defeat so heavy it could take a decade to recover. Until now, few have said so publicly, but the result in Glasgow East has legitimised a more honest debate about his responsibility for the party’s predicament. The sense of despair has spread way beyond the ultra-Blairites, and is mixed with regret rather than anger.

The prime minister’s analysis of the wider political situation is broadly correct. He’s right to say that problems with fuel and food prices are international. He can fairly claim that the government is pursuing the best policies to take the country through the current economic turbulence. Above all, he is entirely justified in saying that the Tories and the SNP have put forward no realistic alternatives.

Had he been able to connect with the people and win their confidence as prime minister, his leadership would not be threatened, but he wasn’t able. To raise the leadership issue is not to “turn inwards”, as some in the cabinet want us to believe. Rather it is to face outwards, look the electorate in the eye and acknowledge how they see us. If voters can’t identify with the leader, they won’t identify with the party.

On Friday the prime minister asked Labour members to “have confidence that not only do we have the right policies, but when the time comes we will be able to persuade the British people”.

It was an unwise choice of words, inviting the response, “Yes, we believe we have the right policies, but we have no confidence that when the time comes youwillbe able to persuade the British people.”

Taken with the other electoral tests in Crewe, Nantwich and, in particular, London, Glasgow East tell us that Labour is failing to get its message across on a massive scale. That much is blindingly obvious. The much harder question to answer is how the party would be faring under a different leader.

A lot of things have Labour MPs waking up in a cold sweat these days, but one of their worst nightmares is to oust Gordon Brown, put in somebody more superficially appealing and find that the party’s ratings are as dire as ever. Given just how hard it is to get rid of a Labour leader who doesn’t want to go, that fear is enough to make most MPs think twice, thrice and still feel paralysed with indecision. Well, politics – as Gordon Brown tells us – is all about making the tough decisions.

None of the three following propositions can be proved, but I nevertheless believe them to be true: 1. That under a different leader Labour would not have lost the Glasgow East by-election; 2. That a man or a woman with different personal qualities would be much better placed to expose the weakness of both the Conservative and SNP alternatives; 3. That a change of leader would significantly improve Labour’s chances at the next general election and avoid the prospect of a defeat so severe that most of today’s ministers would never hold office again.

The risks inherent in a change of leadership are enormous, but I believe they are less than the risks of carrying on as we are. Improbable though it is, if Gordon Brown were to stand aside voluntarily, he would be greatly admired and thanked for doing so. It need not be a humiliation. He might remember William Hague’s resignation speech after the 2001 general election defeat: “No man or woman is indispensable. No individual is more important than the party.” Wise words indeed.

If the prime minister feels unable to make way, then a frank judgment on his liability to the party should be delivered on behalf of more than half his cabinet, thus forcing him to do so. An orderly election for a new leader would then take place, of the sort we should have had when Blair resigned. Gordon Brown could stand if he wished, although he would surely lose.

It would then be for the best of the next generation – David Miliband, James Purnell, Andy Burnham, perhaps Ed Balls – to decide whether to stand. Or they might opt to unite behind another candidate, in effect a stop-gap. Alan Johnson has the communications skills and human warmth that Brown regrettably lacks, and would be a sensible choice.

If Gordon Brown goes with dignity he will retain the respect of his party as a man who gave it his best shot but was big enough to recognise that modern political leadership requires qualities he just doesn’t have. If he is forced from office or, worse still, leads the party to a catastrophic defeat, the judgment will be just about as harsh as it gets.

Politicians on the ropes, like wayward husbands, tend to feel both unloved and misunderstood. They may know deep down that they're responsible for their own predicament, but more often than not it's well camouflaged by self-pity and resentment.

If Gordon Brown is looking around for somebody else to blame this week then he has an obvious target in the latest batch of memoir writers. He is notoriously thin-skinned about how he's portrayed in books of any kind, but the Prime Minister would do better to look much closer to home for the author of his misfortunes.

It happens to be true, for all that, that politicians as a breed are both unloved and very often misunderstood. One common misconception is that despite their superficial smiles they all loathe each other and can't wait to exact revenge for previous betrayals, real or imagined.

When it was put to Ernie Bevin, Labour's post-war Foreign Secretary, that his troublesome colleague Aneurin Bevan was his own worst enemy, he famously replied, "Not while I'm alive 'e ain't". But the books by John Prescott, Cherie Blair and Michael Levy are anything but vengeful. Indeed Mr Brown probably feels lucky to have got off so lightly.

Few people write books like this to damage anybody else. The reasons are complex and varied, although vanity is certainly among them. Having written the first insider's account of the Blair years, The Spin Doctor's Diary, I know how angry and let down former colleagues can feel.

Some people, not many, still refuse to speak to me, although I bet they would be hard pushed to remember anything I wrote to cause lasting offence. And, of course, I smile when some of my critics produce memoirs of their own.

Frequently Gordon Brown came across in less than flattering terms in my book, as he does in those that have appeared more recently, not because I had any scores to settle - I didn't - but because the way he behaved as Chancellor had such a profound impact on the lives of everybody in and around the centre of power.

When Prescott calls Brown ''frustrating, annoying, bewildering and prickly" that's not the half of it, but he's not telling us anything new.

Indeed it might have been better for the Prime Minister if John Prescott or Cherie Blair had come out with all guns blazing. Had they really gone over the top they would have engendered some sympathy for Mr Brown on the grounds that he couldn't possibly be as bad as he'd been portrayed. By pulling their punches (not something John Prescott is famous for) they may have hurt him more.

I'm not being perverse for the sake of it when I say this, but Gordon Brown does deserve some sympathy. Yes, he can be every bit as difficult as all these memoirs suggest. But no, he's not as bad a Prime Minister as the conventional wisdom now dictates. Far from it. His appalling poll ratings, especially those comparing his qualities with those of David Cameron, are a cruel underestimation both of his talents and his competence.

The same was true of John Major and the danger for Brown is that, like Major before him, he's reached such a low ebb that he will no longer be given credit for anything he does right. It was a fate that befell Major after he'd won an election. It has hit Brown much more quickly and with more brutal force.

The reasons for his predicament are revealed in the memoirs from the Blair years, whether the authors pull their punches or not. John Major was a man without a past, or at least with only a very recent past. Gordon Brown has a very long past indeed and it's littered with the bloodied but breathing bodies of those he crossed on his way to the job he wanted rather too much.

Some, such as Frank Field, had cherished but expensive policies vetoed by the then chancellor. Others, like Mr Prescott, remember his intolerable bad manners with supposed colleagues. A few, such as Lord Levy, question his veracity. Rather more, like Cherie Blair, resent his failure to support her husband at crucial moments.

Many, many others who will probably never write books just recall him being hurtfully rude or dismissive for no good reason. As a result he has very little loyalty in the bank and at times he must wish he'd retained a bit more of it. It would have earned some useful interest.

So we are left with the impression of a man whose bullying and tantrums and sulks and scheming were all designed to secure him a job in which he's now floundering. To be fair once more, he often had good reasons as Chancellor to say no and he made enemies in the interests of the Labour Party as well as his own.

But it doesn't matter how fair the impression is. People have a right to ask why, if he wanted the job so very badly, he can't now give us a better idea of what he wants to do with it. He fought a long guerrilla war. He should have had enough time in the process to work out what do when he won it.

A decisive final battle would have helped. When some of us argued that an election for the leadership would be in Gordon Brown's interests as well as the party's we meant it. It wasn't just a ruse to give us somebody else to vote for. Not one single Labour MP or party member voted for Mr Brown as leader. He'd have a far greater command over their loyalty if they had.

And yet even now, perhaps especially now, they are willing to forget all that has gone before and unite behind him to keep the Tories from coming back.

Unlike John Major he doesn't lead a divided party, but he does lead a dispirited one. Labour members don't lack the will to win again, but they are fast losing confidence in their chances of doing so. Unless Gordon Brown can break out from under the prism of failure through which his leadership is now viewed then the fear of defeat at the next election will turn into a sullen acceptance of its inevitability. And if that happens then the authors of the next batch of memoirs may well feel less of a need to tone down their reminiscences.

Even the Prime Minister must have known this was a dreadful speech. It was leaden, badly delivered, had nothing new to impart, and came over terribly on the box. Some brave soul is going to have to sit him down and tell him it's time to get his act together.

Because good speech-making is, in part, an act. We know he doesn't like the showbiz side of politics. Not Flash, Just Gordon is a great advertising line, but he's going to have to learn to love the spotlight occasionally, or at least look as if he does.

It wasn't all his fault. I'm sure he didn't suggest wandering from side to side of the stage in a vaguely Cameronesque way. Unfortunately, because the camera followed him, it looked as if the platform party were on wheels being pushed first one way and then the other while he stayed centre stage. As soon as Wendy Alexander, the embattled Scottish party leader, heaved into view, Gordon would turn and she'd be wheeled out of shot again pronto.

Then, just as I was thinking the speech needed more light and shade, the prime minister obliged by walking too far in one direction and almost disappearing into shadow.

The perambulations led him to make silly mistakes too. Of the heroes of the Glasgow bombing he said, "they will always be in our debt". Overall there was too much declamatory language and very little to engage a sceptical or even impartial listener. He clearly didn't have anything new to impart - but with a better script he could have at least put over old ideas in a fresh way.

When Brown is on a mission his oratory is magnificent. Yesterday he didn't seem to know where he was going. Unless he makes some big improvement soon, people will start to conclude it's not just his speech-making but his government that's lost its way.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Jonathan Powell is that, after ten years as the prime minister's chief of staff, he was virtually unknown outside the tightest circles of Whitehall's inner core. If he'd had the time, which he clearly didn't, he could have walked into any pub in Britain and enjoyed a quiet pint without anybody raising an eyebrow.

Powell once said that he thought he'd "grown like" Tony Blair as a result of a decade and more working in such close proximity with the man, but he never shared his boss's love of publicity. Which is one reason why he was so good at his job and managed, while so many others fell by the wayside, to stay the distance.

And because he kept in the shadows for so long, what he has to say now is all the more fascinating. Not only did he survive, he did so with an ability to look back with a wry smile. His appraisal of Blair's strengths and weaknesses is characteristically frank.

His frustration with some of the latter is understated, reflecting the intense loyalty he clearly still feels for the man. The prime minister, he says, could be a "flibbertigibbet". Which is to say that his mind could race on to the next big challenge in his sights long before the loose ends of his last initiative had come close to being tied up.

Very often, it was Jonathan Powell himself who paid the price for this. He was Blair's progress-chaser, having to keep tabs on everything, demanding to know what had been done to implement orders long after the PM had forgotten issuing them.

Powell bravely defends the business of "sofa government", rightly pointing out that it doesn't matter where a decision is made so long as it is the right one. He is perhaps too modest to point out that it fell to him to impose some discipline on a system that left those of us lucky enough to get a seat on the sofa pretty clear what was on Tony Blair's mind but not at all sure what we were supposed to do about it.

Blair's habit of producing hand written drafts of speeches, often at the last minute, is accurate too. But it wasn't just the civil servants and secretaries who suffered. The reaction of the ladies of the WI to one Blair-inspired oration showed how it could occasionally go horribly wrong, although usually he had a better instinctive sense of the mood of the nation at any given time than most of his staff.

Interestingly, Powell backs Blair for president of Europe not because he would be good for the European Union but because he recognises Europe as one of the great pieces of unfinished business from the Blair years. As prime minister, Blair dearly wanted to make Britain love the EU, and preferably the Euro too, but failed on both counts. Why? Because, as Powell says, the first term, when Blair had the popularity and power to achieve so much, lacked boldness. By the time the PM really discovered the courage to go with his convictions, it was of necessity directed elsewhere.

Powell puts his finger on the dilemma at the heart of the decade he spent lashed to Tony Blair. Winning, winning and winning again was the priority. The fear of repeating the mistakes of previous Labour governments was always haunting. But by having one eye on the future and one on the past, it could be very difficult to focus properly on the present.

That as much was achieved under those constraints as it was is, to a large extent, down to Jonathan Powell. Tony Blair was lucky to have him.

Try as I might, and believe me I’ve tried, I can’t think of a political leader who’s got off to a worse start than Wendy Alexander. Even the hapless Ian Duncan-Smith (remember him?) had a brief honeymoon as Tory leader. Gordon Brown certainly enjoyed one as Prime Minister, although he’d probably have trouble now remembering how good it felt.

Far from enjoying a honeymoon, Wendy has taken such a battering that she could be forgiven for wondering whether an early divorce from the party leadership might not be best for her and best for her party. But she’s decided she wants to stick with it and I happen to believe she’s right, though there are plenty of people who’d be happy to see her go.

Alex Salmond for one. He says he wants to stay in his job and, as a result, wants Wendy to stay in hers but don’t believe a word of it. He knows she’s got guts and has what it takes to give him a run for his money if she can only put her terrible first months behind her. He’d be delighted if she went, not just because her scalp would be a terrible blow to Labour but because he knows there’s nobody of her calibre and experience around to replace her.

So while Labour needs to change and change fast, a change of leadership isn’t the answer. It would be perverse of her to go after the Electoral Commission found largely in her favour. And while the Sunday Times revelations about undercover fundraising back in 2002 are serious and have to be addressed they don’t amount to a resignation issue. For once though Alex Salmond is right – the affair has been hugely damaging to Labour.

At the very least anybody who thinks they were deceived or defrauded when they attended events hosted by the Scottish Industry Forum should be given their money back. It would be the right thing to do both morally and politically. What’s more it would show just how many people who supported the SIF, set up as the Sunday Times accurately reported “to improve relations between new Labour and business”, were shocked by the revelation that their money ended up funding the party.

Refunding money wrongly received can only ever be a start. If Labour is going to present a new face to the electorate it needs to go much further. ‘Change’ is the word all politicians like to use at the moment and it’s been uttered so often of late that it’s in danger of becoming meaningless. Wendy Alexander has to show that there’s real substance behind the promise of change. She must show that both she and her party have changed and, above all, that she understands why politics can’t go on as it has before.

Labour had a strangle-hold on power in Scotland for so long that it became arrogant and complacent. It didn’t take the SNP seriously and saw Alex Salmond installed as First Minister as a result. Now it acts as if last year’s defeat was an aberration and that the voters will see the error of their ways sooner rather than later and restore the party to its rightful position in government.

Parties that underestimate their opponents and refuse to change to meet changing times court disaster. In the first quarter of the twentieth century the Liberal Party failed to recognise the threat from Labour, then as now led by many a determined Scot, lost office and never regained it. They allowed history to overtake them rather than going through the painful process of facing up to why the electorate had rejected them. And, for what it’s worth, they’d been caught out taking donations far dodgier than anything we’re talking about today. Labour in Scotland could go the same way.

The risk of being punished for the arrogance of power is greater now that it was a century ago. People are far less likely to identify themselves as life-long supporters of any party now than they were then. The days when Labour could take it for granted that vast swathes of people would turn out to vote for them at election time come are gone for good.

Wendy Alexander is at a crossroads both politically and personally. She rose through the party’s ranks under the old days of Labour dominance and machine politics, but she’s young enough to recognise that a new generation wants a new way of doing things. The question is whether she has it in her to lead Labour in a genuinely new direction.

On the party funding front that means no longer constantly operating at the margins of what the law allows. Every donation from a questionable source, every cheque that is just a few pence below the limits so it doesn’t have to be declared simply reinforces the impression that Labour is dodgy. It’s no good claiming the letter of the law has been obeyed when the public want the spirit to be embraced too.

Labour should make it clear there will be no more front organisations for fund-raising and that in future it will err on the side of over-disclosure. A voluntary pledge to declare any donation that comes within 75% of the legal limit would go some way to restoring confidence.

Then Labour needs to take a long hard look at how to reconnect with the electorate. I have just returned from the US where Barak Obama has found the language and techniques to connect with huge numbers of people who had given up on politics as usual. In doing so he’s made Hilary Clinton look like a creature of the past. A lot of it is rhetoric and he runs the risk of building up expectations only to dash them as Tony Blair did for many in Britain. But he’s showing that cynicism about politics can be overcome and that the promise of a fresh start will get a loud cry of “yes please” is response.

Wendy Alexander is never going to be Scotland’s Obama but she’s two years younger than him and could yet show herself capable of meeting the challenges of the new politics. If she can’t then sooner or later she will have to make way for somebody who can.

The objective is the same - close down a bad story, concede and move on. But there's more than one way of taking it on the chin.

Mr Brown watched in horror from the Treasury as his predecessor sought to defend the indefensible and, in so doing, simply brought down more attacks upon his own head. At its extreme it became known as the "masochism strategy". Invite as much pain as you can so that, at the end of it, people conclude that you can't possibly be as bad as all that.

In keeping with the name, Mr Blair actually seemed to enjoy the pain. Although by the end I suspect he'd endured so much he just didn't really feel it any more. Mr Brown clearly has a lower pain threshold. He seems happy to send his tormentors off looking for somebody else to persecute. Many a minister will have felt a cold shiver in their vertebrae as the leader of the Labour Party deliberately put the reputation of his deputy on the line.

His wriggling over the question of Harriet Harman's conduct was bad tactics on two fronts. In the first place, far from closing down the story it simply gave the media a big neon sign pointing them in the direction of where to take it. And, secondly, it distracted attention from his main message that things were swiftly being put right.

The Prime Minister would do well to look again at Mr Blair's methods. After all, he went through enough crises in 10 years to have learnt a thing or two about what works and what doesn't.

Brown's message should be "No Whitewash, No Witch-hunts". Get all the facts out into the public domain as quickly as possible and ensure any necessary punishments. But make it clear that you won't sit back and let the media indulge in the favourite sport of guilt by association. Mr Brown might also have pointed out that the system is a lot cleaner now than under the Tories.

Take it on the chin by all means, Gordon, but don't be afraid to lay a punch or two of your own.

• Lance Price was a press adviser to Tony Blair as Prime Minister.

What if Hitler had won the Second World War? What if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed and JFK had never been assassinated?

What if Gordon had called that election and David Cameron was now enjoying his first weekend in Downing Street? Or, more likely, going on Breakfast telly to say the country was back in safe hands after its rather long flirtation with Labour?

Well for a start this week's Queen Speech would be a very different affair. Don't believe all that guff about the parties now believing in much the same things. It's put about by the Tories and their many friends in the media to make us think it's safe to vote for them again. Yes the centre ground is getting more crowded these days but politics is about more than just positioning and spin. I should know. It's about who you go into public life to help. About where you're coming from and where you want the country to go.

With the public finances about to get a lot tighter Brown and Cameron would spend those scarce resources looking after the people that really matter to them and you just have to look at both men to know they have different priorities.

In fact, despite the polls, I don't think the Tories would have won if last Thursday had been polling day. Why? Because the polls don't tell you everything. Ask Neil Kinnock. I'm certain that, just as they did with Kinnock, the people of Britain would have taken a long, cold look at Cameron and decided they just didn't want him to be Prime Minister. He doesn't look the part and it wouldn't be worth the risk of seeing if he'd grow into the job.

The campaign would have shown the Conservative Party up for what it still is, out of touch with the real world. In a close fight they just wouldn't have been able to help themselves banging on about Europe and attacking foreigners, whether migrant workers or their favourite bogeymen of Brussels. The fact that the country's prosperity and that of all of us as individuals would suffer wouldn't have deterred them for a second.

Their only chance would have been if Gordon Brown had followed them down the same road, paying too much heed to the pollsters that he loves to consult about everything from what tie to wear to which team to support. It's an addiction that has already done him huge personal harm and he needs to kick it or he will end up as the Amy Winehouse of politics. We saw at the Labour Conference how ready he was to wrap himself in the Union Jack and play to the Daily Mail agenda.

We didn't always see eye to eye when I worked for Tony Blair, but I know that's not the real Gordon Brown. Thankfully he now has the time to show what a truly great Labour Prime Minister he can be.

I wouldn't pretend to have many claims to fame from the few years that I took away from journalism to work in politics. But maybe just one. I'm pretty sure I invented the phrase “the nasty party” to describe the Tories. I put it in the mouth of a defector from their ranks when I helpfully drafted his resignation statement. He's since gone back to the Tories where he always belonged but the phrase has lived on and is even in the Oxford Book of Political Quotations.

Are the few defenders of the Met Police chief the new Blairites? A small embattled group backing a leader who won't step down while most of the press bays for his blood? If so, count me out. I have a lot of admiration for Sir Ian Blair and the way he runs the force, but he now risks undoing so much of the good he has done for policing in London.

The Met's behaviour reminded me of the BBC, my other old employer, at the time of the Hutton Report into the death of the Iraq weapons inspector, Dr David Kelly. A powerful, arrogant institution stubbornly refusing to admit it had done anything wrong despite all the evidence. Like the Beeb, the police in the capital need to move on and can only do that when the guy at the top carries the can.

It took the BBC a long time to regain its credibility and self-confidence but once it had people looked back and saw that it hadn't really deserved all the criticism heaped upon it. We can't wait for the Metropolitan Police to go through the same painful process. We need them out there defending us without looking over their shoulders. Greg Dyke had to be pushed out of the BBC, protesting that he'd done nothing wrong. Sir Ian Blair thinks the same, and he's right, but that's not the point.

The force will be weakened until he goes. The Mirror's Kevin Maguire once called me the last Blairite left standing. Well, I never thought I would say this but Blair should resign.

Richard and Judy have the good sense to know when it's time to move on. The show has been looking tired lately and, frankly, so have they. The good news is that they're keeping up the Book Club. When popular TV presenters like Oprah and the Madeleys tell their viewers to turn the wretched box off occasionally and read a good book instead they do the whole nation a favour.

It's been a difficult week ever since I ran over my own glasses in McDonald's car park. They'd fallen out of my jacket pocket and landed right behind the back wheel of the car. I'm now just waiting for my insurance company to tell me they won't pay out because I was negligent. After all if I'd been wearing them I'd have been able to see where I dropped them.

It may not feel like it, but things are looking up for Gordon Brown. And before anybody suggests things could hardly have got any worse, think again. His week from hell was just a gentle toasting compared to the full heat of a genuine political crisis. His reputation suffered a nasty singe or two but nothing more terminal than that, and the "Blairites" who leapt in with dire warnings at the first whiff of smoke should have known better.

Since then two things have happened. The European treaty and the abrupt end of the Ming Dynasty have taken centre stage. Both may look like threats to Mr Brown, but are actually welcome opportunities.

Gordon Brown and David Miliband will achieve the treaty they want, the press campaign for a referendum will get shriller, if that's possible, and the Tories will say the opinion polls show the public share their obsession. By resisting on all fronts the prime minister can demonstrate that while he may dine with Mr Murdoch he hasn't given him a veto on government policy, that he'll pay heed to the polls but not be mesmerised by them, and that the Conservative party is never happier than when it's in a Euro-tizzy. All we need is for William Hague to demand that we be "in Europe not run by Europe" and Mr Brown can smile again.

By 2009, now the earliest date for an election, few voters will remember what all the fuss was about - assuming they have any real idea now - and with luck the European Union will be doing its important work a little more efficiently.

As former MEPs, both Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne understand the need for European reform and either would help the prime minister make his case. If they also rejuvenate the Lib Dems and get them punching even at their weight - if not above - they will be helping Mr Brown too. The most obvious way is by taking the pressure off Labour in dozens of seats where a collapse in their vote would have helped Mr Cameron on his way to a majority.

More significantly, by making a powerful Liberal case on policy, and having it heard as any new leader should be able to do, they will free the prime minister from the two-party straitjacket that has led him to see Tory clothes as the only ones worth stealing.

If he gets a minute, Gordon should give Ming a quick call to say thank you.

Gordon Brown has a weakness problem, but it's not the one the Tories and most of the media are trying to lay on him. It's something more profound, but also something he could easily turn into a strength if he would only let himself.

It wasn't weakness to call off a premature election. To have held one would have been reckless not courageous. Nor is it weak leadership to take a long, hard look at the facts before making an important decision. It's common sense.

No, Brown's weakness is the same weakness that has undermined his effectiveness as a politician ever since the leadership election of 1994. It's a weakness that only he can overcome. "Gordon wants his own mandate", his friends were telling journalists long before the autumn election fever took hold. Why? Because even now Brown believes deep down that he's living in Tony Blair's shadow. That he's somehow governing with Blair's majority and not his own. It's as if Brown will only free himself from the agony of having made way for Tony Blair as leader all those years ago when he wins an election of his own.

It's baloney and the sooner Gordon Brown gets over the sense of inadequacy it seems to give him the sooner he will be able to show what a strong, confident and effective prime minister he can be.

Gordon Brown is as much the architect of New Labour as Tony Blair ever was. He doesn't need to photo-shop the past in order to represent "change" for the future. And anybody who remembers the 2005 general election campaign (it wasn't long ago after all) and the decisive impact of Blair and Brown campaigning side by side, almost hand in hand, will acknowledge that it was a victory that rightly belonged to both men. For a while the Conservatives even campaigned on the slogan "Vote Blair, Get Brown" so to claim now that the electorate didn't know what they were getting is disingenuous.

Brown has his mandate and, as a proud upholder of parliamentary democracy, he should say so. He should also say quite explicitly that his intention is to let this parliament run to the conventional term of at least four years.

There never was a principled case for an early election. There certainly is no such case for one in 2008. The prime minister will only be allowed to get on with the job when he makes that clear. Then he and his exceptionally talented cabinet should put their heads down and govern in a solid, unspectacular and - yes - un-spun fashion, which is what he told us they were going to do in the first place.

Right now the headlines are awful for Brown but, like most bad headlines, they will be forgotten before too long. When his day of judgement really does come, at the proper time, he'll be re-elected or turfed out on the strength of what he does over the next eighteen months or so. Get that right, as I believe he will, and he will deserve a new majority.

Before he can do that, however, the prime minister needs to look deep into himself, slay his own demons, and recognise that he already has the authority and strength to be a great prime minister in his own right.