Frightened of the future, Gordon?

We shouldn’t be surprised if Gordon Brown resorts to the most naked political opportunism and calls a General Election.

He would do so only because he thinks he can win now but would lose at some time in the future.

If he does, he will be making the most of his single greatest electoral asset – the fact that he isn’t Tony Blair.

The country is so relieved to see the back of the slimy charlatan that even the humourless Scot with the fixed grin and Socialist instincts seems a ray of sunshine by comparison*.

Let’s not be fooled by the media, either. The gullible twits seem to have accepted the spin that David Cameron has one last party conference speech to determine finally whether the election is called now or not.

It’s claimed that a 2005 re-run of Cameron’s leadership-winning oration would somehow scare Brown into shelving plans for a snap election.

How does that work, then? Labour spin doctors, who have spent the past few weeks fuelling election fever, suddenly turn tail and flee leaving behind a goodbye note saying they’re scared of David Cameron after all?

Would some Alastair Campbell clone whisper it in dark corners that Cameron was so stunningly good that Brown was “frit”?

I don’t see it. From Labour’s point of view a Cameron conference speech will never be a success. So the election decision will have nothing to do with his performance at Blackpool.

If he were the most brilliant orator since Cicero, they would still rubbish his achievements. If we were as coherent as John Prescott, Labour and its gullible BBC sycophants would not be any more abusive.

The decision has been made. And the decision is that Gordon Brown is, indeed, frit. He knows the polls will only get worse as we all remember he has been responsible for most of the disasters of the past decade up to and including the invasion of Iraq.

He and his chums are trying to wriggle out of responsibility for anything which happened under Tony Blair. But we all know who held the purse-strings and wielded the financial power.

Gordon didn’t chew those fingernails for nothing. They were gnawed to the bone as the outward sign of how eaten up he was inside that Tony should do all the swanning around in the sunshine while he had to burn the candle at both ends exercising his rigid control over every aspect of Government.

Talk about having "something of the night" about him....

He’s still the control freak he always was and all the major mistakes of the Blair years were Brown’s too.

But the polls suggest we have temporarily forgotten this simple fact, relieved as we all are to see the back of Blair.

We will soon grow tired of the novelty of Mr Night's moment in the sun. And as soon as we do, the questions will start piling up.

He has to seize the day because delay would court greater disaster. Mr Brown knows that for him, his party and his country, things can only get worse.

Of course, there is always the possibility that the voters realise when they are being treated like idiots and turn a decision to call an election into one of the worst political blunders in history.

That’s a real risk. It's not as if there is a huge clamour for the country to go to the polls. There's no requirement except Gordon's political need to shore up his position before the floodwaters start to rise and overwhelm him.

Is a man who has spent 15 years stabbing his best friend in the back to achieve his ultimate ambition really willing to risk the danger of being a 120-day wonder?

Possibly. For Gordon “Macbeth” Brown, an early election demonstrates nothing so much as fear of the longer-term future. A delayed election reveals fear of the short-term future.

Either way, by allowing all this speculation to blossom and flourish he has revealed his natural cowardice. Frightened if he does call an election; frightened if he don’t.

* "It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine" - PG Wodehouse.