Does Brown believe this stuff?

So, Gordon Brown tells Andrew Marr: "Everything I have ever won in my life I have had to fight for."

You can understand the political line of attack behind this; portray Gordon Brown as the great battler in life, compared to David Cameron who has had everything presented to him on a silver platter. In the Downing Street bunker that line made total sense I'm sure.

The trouble is: it doesn't work.

It doesn't work because the class warfare stuff is failing badly.

It doesn't work because Cameron is open about his background and his rebuttle about the importance of family and education is good.

And it doesn't work because it isn't true.

Gordon Brown was selected for a safe Scottish Labour seat and even now will not struggle to get re-elected come the next election. He didn't have to fight for the Labour leadership in 2007 either, prefering a cornonation to an election. In fact, in many ways the opposite it true. Brown shows every signs of hating battles, even choosing to put off an election when he may have won it.

I am not saying he hasn't has problems in his life (his eye sight, for example, and the loss of his daughter) but to portary Brown as one of life's great battlers just isn't true.

If he said this line for political advantage he takes the British people for fools; we can see through it.

If he said this line and believed it, well, that's much more serious ...