I followed your link and was disappointed to read that the country's number one political blogger states: "Gordon Brown has divorced Prudence". Given that he is married to Sarah, is this another example of Mr Dale getting it wrong?

LOL

Have you and Iain ever met in real life? If not then you should.

The excuse to keep quiet could be because they have no policies to offer for the crisis, OR is it the only way they can keep Osborne out of the limelight!

I love this. The one thing that seems to have changed in recent years is that the public like attack-politics less than they used to.

Remember Brown's conference speech as watched by a focus-group on Newsnight? They all hit the red-button when he attacked the Tories or bragged about Labour, and they all hit the green one when he said positive things about his plans.

All of a sudden, the Tory poll lead is evaporating - largely because of the economic legacy of Thatcherism - and the only thing that they can think of doing is to attack. It's like those companies that are struggling, and the first thing they do is cut their marketing budget. They go bust even quicker.

The Tories know - deep down - that bipartisanship at the moment is the only game in town. The public still sort-of understand that the whole deregulated finance industry was the Tories idea in the first place and the reason we're in this mess now. Anything apart from trying to tie Labour to it (and trying to tie NEW Labour to it isn't that difficult) is going to rebound on them badly.

But their backbenchers won't allow them *not* to attack. And whatever your doubts about Brown,(and I share them I reckon), no-one is better than him at the kind of chess-playing that is needed over the next few months.