Meet the brilliant £5m polling guru who the PM wants to hire from Hillary Clinton

Gordon Brown is secretly planning to headhunt the world's most expensive polling expert in an attempt to revive his political fortunes.

The move to recruit political strategist Mark Penn, chief adviser to US Presidential contender Hillary Clinton, is the latest in a Downing Street shake-up ordered by the Prime Minister's new No 10 guru, public relations executive Stephen Carter.

But the timing of the disclosure is embarrassing for Mr Brown, coming just ten days before he visits the States where he is due to meet Mrs Clinton and her Democrat rival, Barack Obama.

Mr Brown can only hire multi-millionaire Mr Penn if Mrs Clinton is forced to pull out of the White House race in favour of Mr Obama, as many experts predict.

Mr Penn was paid a staggering £500,000 to work for Tony Blair in the last General Election and his polling company, Penn, Schoen and Berland, has charged Mrs Clinton more than £5million.

Last week, Mr Penn was forced to make a grovelling apology after his controversial business activities enraged Mrs Clinton.

He admitted meeting Colombian government officials in his capacity as chief executive of public relations firm Burson Marsteller.

The Colombians have paid Burson Marsteller more than £150,000 to promote a new trade deal with the US – even though it is fiercely opposed by Mrs Clinton. Mr Penn was forced to issue a statement declaring the meeting was "an error of judgment and I am sorry for it".

Mr Penn, a Polish chicken farmer's son, came to fame after helping Bill Clinton retain power in 1996 by devising a strategy to woo so-called "soccer moms".

His interest in identifying target groups of voters is revealed in his recent book Microtrends, in which he profiles such groups as Cougars, described as women who date younger men.

News of his planned recruitment comes after The Mail on Sunday disclosed Mr Brown's current senior polling adviser, Deborah Mattinson, is under fire for giving him poor advice.

Mr Penn, 54, is known as "Schlumbo" and "Pig Penn" in Washington as a result of his unkempt style. One friend described him as having "the IQ of Bill Gates and the EQ (emotional quotient) of an eggplant".

He lives in a £3million mansion in Washington's fashionable Georgetown district with glamorous wife Nancy Jacobson, a Democratic Party fundraiser.

Mr Penn has made a fortune working for a number of controversial clients including Union Carbide, the firm involved in the Bhopal gas leak in India in which thousands died, Argentina's military junta and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Recruiting him would leave Mr Brown vulnerable to claims that he has reneged on his promise to give up the image-obsessed approach to politics of Mr Blair.

Mr Penn already has close links with Mr Carter and his Downing Street new guard, drawn mainly from advertising and public relations.

Burson Marsteller is owned by WPP, which recently supplied advertising executive David Muir to No 10.

The new guard has clashed repeatedly with members of Mr Brown's so-called old guard, composed of Labour advisers who worked with him at the Treasury and who were blamed for the on-off autumn Election fiasco.