I completeley agree with you Bob. Ken Clarke is after all the man who bequeathed an extremely healthy economy to Gordon who, after flirting with Prudence til 2001, proceeded to sh*g it something rotten.

I too find it astonishing that Dave has not made use of this heavyweight. Ken is easily able to contradict Brown's endless "facts" with authority.

I don't think the wives make any difference, to be honest. Tony Blair's wife was hardly well-loved by the electorate but he still managed to win three elections. In any case, since 1997 the whole 'image management' thing has been completely devalued and the voters have long since seen through it.

The spin machine needs to understand that people haven't been turned off Gordon Brown because they think he's a curmudgeon - they're turned off because he's held the two biggest jobs in government and has been crap at both of them. What people are crying out for now is competence, which is why the Tories can't gain a foothold - they're still faffing around kissing babies.

Regrettable is the seemingly genuine belief in government circles that the Piers Morgan interview will have won a lot of women's votes - a stance that will certainly backfire as it is not only deeply patronising but frankly inaccurate. It may surprise Brown's advisors to know that not all women voters love the type of TV show in which participants are encouraged to burst into tears at the earliest opportunity.

I actually think the 'Sarah Brown effect' on Labour's electoral prospects is massively overrated. She seems like a decent person, but that doesn't necessarily reflect positively on him. Let's be honest, most people know at least one nice girl who is married to an unholy arse. The fact that they're together doesn't make him any less of an arse, you're just baffled as to what on earth she sees in him.

So, Charlie, why is Ken being kept in the dark? Perhaps it is because his views on who should control our economic destiny are music to the ears of UKIP? Surely it can't just be because the economic incompetent who pretends to be Shadow Chancellor shared the showers after rugger with the boss at school?

Oh... and not forgetting Andy... who speaks on behalf of women everywhere (and then has the nerve to suggest others are patronising).

I have never been a fan of people who display what some call gravitas and I call pomposity. Imagine Brown with the accent of a West Country yokel “No more boom and bust oi say”,” Wor oi do is sell high and buy low …clever see “.”Thang about Keyes iz you spend counter cyclic..oi mean counter ..oi mean when we are skint .Oi just added moi bit which was you spend when we aint too “.Any ill earned reputation he had has for competence has collapsed like a Circus clown`s car .

You know why there is every likelihood of another five years of this poltroon ? Its not complicated ,most people couldn’t tell you if the National debt was measured in billions or pennies and they are under the impression that Giggling Gord has saved us from melt down. In fact, as the few left able to read know, he has merely deferred the agonies by raising taxes on us and our children. .
As for his wife ..well I vastly preferred Madame Blair to renta bride who, I suspect, was impregnated by post sent to the usual address of her New Labour dependent PR company

I like Ken Clarke though , liked John Major , we shall miss sensible Grammar schoolboys like them and whose fault is that ? The hypocritical left who universally send their own children to Public school

I despair with this country heading to the election like the Eloi into the Morlock`s subterranean casserole. God help us all if we do not wake up soon

newmania not a fan of pomposity? Who'd have thunk?

Ken Clarke really is the Tories' best asset. But he's one that the fanatics won't want to see used. It's been like that for over a decade...