It could be Boris who gains from this bottle

In the 1970s his seminal work, Swap Shop, precisely foretold a future in which we spend our lives trying to get through to telephone call-centres.

Now Edmonds has done it again. Yesterday, his new Sky One quiz show, Are You Smarter Than a 10-Year-Old?, pitted teams of sickeningly precocious schoolkids - the kind you want to kill on sight - against teams of adults.

It was, of course, a quite hopeless deal for the grown-ups. If they lost, they had been humiliated by a bunch of primary schoolchildren. But if they won, they'd merely proved that they were, er, smarter than a 10-yearold.

This week, the Tories are the 10-year-olds - and Gordon Brown is one of the sucker adults. By talking up an early election, the Prime Minister, for all his vastly superior size and strength, manoeuvred himself into exactly the no-win situation faced by Noel's greybeard contestants. Congratulations, Gordon!

Yet however violent the media mood swing, however substantial the Tories' tactical victory, and whatever the more damaging, longer term questions it all places over Mr Brown's character, this is not inevitably a turning-point and Gordon should not be underestimated.

As opposition leader, Cameron can make the news and set the weather in the week of his conference. As Prime Minister, Brown can make the news and set the weather all year.

He starts the fightback today, with a more substantial statement on Iraq. Tomorrow, there will be a no doubt well-packaged comprehensive spending review (though please, everyone, do look at the detail).

The amazing yoyos of the public mood may have one more yo to go. That's why I think it was a mistake, from his point of view, for Mr Brown yesterday all but to rule out an election in 2008 as well, describing it as "unlikely".

With Tory policy still very underdeveloped, the Cameron revival could just possibly be a blip.

The unhappiest Labour politician this week, however, may not be Gordon Brown but Ken Livingstone. Ken made no secret of his desire for a May 2008 general election, coinciding with his own re-election bid, because that is Boris Johnson's worst nightmare.

I know quite a few Londoners who wouldn't vote Tory in a general election, but might be prepared to back Boris for Mayor. Having the two polls on the same day would reduce the chance of those people voting for Boris. Boris's campaign would also lose vast amounts of vital media attention if it were submerged in a broader national election.

Now, however, a national poll looks almost impossible in May 2008. King Newt and the Blond Bombshell will be fighting it out on their own. The great Tory winner of Brown's "big bottle" may not, in the end, be David Cameron, but Boris Johnson.