Afternoon:
10°c
Switching on the radio to find Gordon Brown "getting on with the job" in the "hard times" ahead, I pondered his knack of making the prime ministership of the United Kingdom sound like a cruel and unusual punishment.
Mr Brown's performances so far this week have not been terrible: he looks rested and has tried to correct the battering drone he used to deploy in interviews. He smiles a bit more (and then gets sneered at for having the wrong kind of smile).
How odd, then, that asked if he enjoyed the job he had hankered for since boyhood, he couldn't just answer "yes". Various theories have been mustered as to why: that he considers himself an homme serieux, entirely different to the flighty Blairites; or that he simply does not associate virtue with good times; or his desire to differentiate himself from David Cameron whom he considers a chancer.
On the whole, though, we think that senior jobs in public life are done by people who enjoy them. We may, as Lily Allen would put it, like to "have a little whine and a moan" about those who govern us, but we do not require grim-faced suffering as a sign of commitment.
It is true that his central claim to office is that he has the substance, experience and ability to weather adversity. David Cameron, riding high on his poll ratings and new-found standing as the putative "best prime minister" material, privately acknowledges that he still needs to gain on his foe when it comes to being the leader people will trust in difficult times.
A more relaxed front man would surely, however, have found a way of saying - as Tony Blair once confessed to me when his days in No 10 were numbered, that for all the pressures, cockups, miscalculations and plagues of frogs, it is still "the best job in the world" - assuming you want that sort of job.
Experience and fortitude alone will not halt the erosion of New Labour. There needs to be another commanding reason to stick with it against a "change" candidate in Mr Cameron.
As an avid student of US politics, Mr Brown must devoutly hope that the success of the more experienced Hillary Clinton against the Wunderkind Barack Obama in New Hampshire last night will provide an object lesson for him. Senior Tories have been trying to construct the analogy of Dave as their Barack (that is something of a stretch for an Old Etonian, but nice try). Like Mrs Clinton, the Labour leader is familiar to voters and has been a polarising figure. Both are up against opponents who will emphasise their ability to transcend tribal differences.
It does not help the Prime Minister that he is so curiously timelocked in his ways of communicating, using phrases like "If I may say so" and loftily enjoining us to "have a debate". In the disinhibited age of the internet, text and phone-in, we'll do that whether he likes it or not, thanks very much.
I asked a former Cabinet Minister and sporadic thorn in the Brown flesh what he thought of the New Labour relaunch.
"Has it happened?" was the laconic reply. Mr Brown thinks it has, what with announcing an expansion of nuclear power and a major push on public health which steals some Opposition thunder, as this has been in Cameron's health spokesman Andrew Lansley's pipeline for some time.
What Brown lacks is an overall theme and a timetable of what his premiership can deliver. The most memorable move may well be cannabis reclassification, which is more likely to be reassuring than productive and is, in any case, a return to the status quo ante, not an idea with momentum of its own.
Another serving senior minister was even more critical: "Gordon can't project a sense of direction till he knows what his direction is himself." So far, the senior Labour troops are not reassured by General Brown's 2008 surge.
There is nothing insanely wrong with what he says. Still I can't imagine who is much inspired by what's on offer. Brownism in office cannot solve the classic continuity/change tension: is it a substantial change from New Labour under Blair or just a tweak here and there? The voter may reasonably ask what he or she is being asked to support - is it a radical programme or a steady-as-she-goes course?
A new strategy chief in No 10, Stephen Carter, is there to help us find out. Unlike the rest of inner Team Gordon, he is not a trusty footsoldier of the Brown cause but a part of the rising Brahman class of regulators and PR men, albeit one with a serious record. Mr Carter will make No 10 more efficient - and widen the advice that reaches the PM to include more input form the private sector as well as the Labour comfort zone.
What he will find harder to achieve is the kind of intimacy and familiarity that bind close political partners like Jonathan Powell and Mr Blair, or Steve Hilton and David Cameron through thick and thin. The key to a successful chief of staff is the knowledge on the part of all who encounter them that they speak with the absolute authority of their boss.
Good senior staff can help forge an attractive culture and mood around a Prime Minister but what kind of leader he is and the strategy pursued are ultimately knit into the fabric of a leader's personality. So Mr Brown still bets the house on being an austerity leader, which makes the heart sink a bit when he appears. A sprinkling of optimism would be heartening.
He also needs to come across as a figure on the side of the user of public services, rather than a technocrat fiddling with their delivery. I notice he is still speaking systems - whether in health or education - and needs to tailor his language more to the experience of real life. His personal style is rather less offputting than it was but tends to aloofness, which is not the same as dignity and some way from likability.
The light changes abruptly in politics and not always when we expect it. The picture that lingers in the mind at the start of this year is Clinton, the 20th-century politician, struggling to retain her grip on a 21st-century bid for the White House. She is now back with a vengeance. But it will take more than experience to get her and her friend in No 10 the prize they seek.
