Tonight:
4°c
A seasoned political campaigner once told me that many voters' view of politicians was forged by what they look like with the sound turned down on the television. "If they look bad like that," he said, "they're in real trouble."
The thought returned when a picture of a pale-faced, stressed, sleep-deprived man flashed up above the "Donor scandal" headline this week. The familiar features were pocked and shadowed with baggy exhaustion. Such is the impression of the PM beamed into living rooms across the land.
"Not flash, just Gordon" was the slogan for the election that never was. "Just Gordon and plain knackered" would be more accurate right now.
The expressions on other Labour faces tell their own story. There is Harriet Harman, whatever her other faults a photogenic and collected figure, looking hunted and dulled. And perky Peter Hain, the brassy mini-Titan set for great things under Mr Brown, owning up twice to his own blunders on donations and promptly acquiring the same weary look as his boss - if still a good bit bronzer.
Even uninvolved ministers are at a loss for the right tone. Off the record they admit to a gut feeling of misery - "It's just awful". On it, they attempt to be constructive, without yet fully knowing what scale of wreckage they are supposed to be reconstructing.
The anxiety that goes deeper than any individual blame-pinning is the doubt about Mr Brown's ability to get through it all with his government in any state to be re-elected.
However much his enemies may wish it, Mr Brown is not at the stage where a challenge to his leadership looks inevitable or even very likely. One sharp junior minster did, however, voice a thought to me that others must turn over in their minds. "It's not him going that would be the worst problem. It's him staying and us all being part of his losing streak."
Mid-career figures now fear that their ticket to ride with Gordon could be a ticket back to Opposition, the same sense of beckoning doom that poisoned John Major's ranks before 1997.
In these circumstances, the focus on the PM's personal standing can only get more acute. The "Gordon question" is the one that never quite goes away.
Mr Brown's allies believed this concern had been vanquished when he strode into office with a confident start. In fairness, the "Gordon is a moron/ dysfunctional/not fit for the job" theme was much pursued by those who hoped to bar his way to No 10 and much good it did them.
The issue manifests itself in new and vicious form now. Mr Brown's haste to pursue early closure, before the full acts were known, has rebounded.
First, he summarily dismissed the general secretary, Peter Watt, in the hope that the buck would stop there. That was never likely, given the case of David Abrahams's donations and his promiscuous largesse.
Mr Watt will eventually speak for himself and I would be very surprised if he does not say what practically everyone else in the party apparat believes: that the tolerance of multiple identities from Mr Abrahams was passed down to him and that he was given no encouragement at all to raise any doubts about the arrangement by either Tony Blair or Mr Brown.
Second, he was unfair to an official who should have been suspended, not sacked, until the facts were known. At the same time, he continues to protect Ms Harman because he is loath to lose a Cabinet scalp. The old charge of Mr Brown protectinghis own tribe while being cavalier with the interests of others re-emerges, yet again, in Wendy Alexander, the Scottish Labour leader, being strongly encouraged to stay after admitting donor irregularities, in order to protect Ms Harman and others falling prey to resignation at Westminster.
Double standards about funding are not a one-party speciality. David Cameron's unpromoted "We're not perfect" concession about the Tory record is an indication of an inkling of alarm about the subject in his own ranks. A leader who tolerates the complexities of Michael Ashcroft's position is quite right to be cautious about the moral high ground. The Lib-Dems should also have given back their huge gift from a truly dodgy donor with a criminal record - and did not. But for Mr Brown, this is not just business: it's personal because it reawakens so many old tensions.
On the one hand, he wishes to be seen as the co-architect of New Labour regeneration since 1994. When anything nasty comes out of Pandora's box, however, it is then emphasised that it came from the Blair era, with which Mr Brown was, by implication, entirely unconnected.
Either way, he badly missed the mark by setting up an ad hoc investigation consisting of an old-style party general secretary, a superannuated judge and a Left-leaning Church of England bishop. The tragedy is that he should inhabit a world in which he even thinks that this is going to count as remotely independent or convincing. The narrowness of his circle returns to haunt him.
Just over a year ago, Charles Clarke raised in this paper a string of concerns about how Mr Brown would fare as PM. Many of them bear revisiting.
Mr Clarke spoke then of Mr Brown's need to "show he can lead", show "inner confidence" and more generosity towards colleagues outside his circle - and, crucially, "set out a course for his leadership". I am far from sure it was clearly discernible before the Mr Bean period set in. If it was, it isn't now.
It was thought that Mr Brown's strengths would emerge under fire. True, he could well still look better in a national emergency or international crisis than his opponent, for instance. But Hercules did not get to choose his own labours and his heir in No 10 must adjust to what fate throws at him.
The biggest gap in his armoury in this crisis is a sense of direct communication with the public. We get comments at the set-piece press conference, the sparring of Prime Minister's questions, the insistence that Labour will "get through it". What he fails to convey is how he feels about it all and thus, how he thinks he can lead his government back out of the mire. It is one of those moments when voters want to peer into a leader's soul. Or even turn the TV sound up.
Yet he seems to be in a slightly different time zone to everyone else. "It's been a very busy week," says one aide when I ask why he was not more forthright in discussing the situation in interviews. Well surely this takes precedence if anything does?
A letter to the Parliamentary Labour Party instructed backbenchers to avoid commenting on the crisis and let the police investigation take its course. " Typical Gordon", says one recipient. "He still wants to control something that can't be controlled."
Donorgate II brings many subterranean doubts and criticisms about the PM swimming back to the surface. That may be unfair but it is in the nature of the job he coveted for so long and which he has to show that he can do with conviction and confidence, especially in the dark times.
