WHY GORDON BROWN IS SAFE, PART 94

Another Labour Cabinet minister was on the radio this morning. This time it was Ed Milispoons - and what a revelation he was.

There is something unsettling about a Labour MP speaking with a hopelessly plummy voice but that wasn't the worst of it. He simply had nothing to say on the subject of the Cabinet meeting in Birmingham. It was reminiscent of the early days of New Labour in 1997 when they were all young, keen and completely unaware so they tended to umm and ahh through interviews like schoolchildren on speech day.

One would have hoped that 11 years in they might have improved but it seems there is simply no one who can come close to Gordon for experience.

Of couirse I could be wrong - I tend to be - and Gordon could be chucked out of a first floor window in the ICC but that would be a huge mistake given the pygmies he is surrounded by. You increasingly have to wonder if this is a deliberate ploy of his, given just how poor his ministers seem to be.

Now the rider: I don't doubt that the Milispoon brothers in particular are intelligent and able enough to be whatever they want to be, as will many Cabinet ministers, no doubt. But being Prime Minister seems to need a bit more than bald ability. It requires the kind of chutzpah that Harold Wislon (sic.), Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair brought to the role.

Gordon is safe because there is no one to challenge him.