Second look at labour

Yet, however keen Mr Brown may be to deny violence on his part, this is not one of the allegations being made. The claims in a new book do not allege that the Prime Minister actually hit anybody. What they do say is that Mr Brown has a vile temper and has bullied his staff to such an extent that Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has had to ask him to change his behaviour. And all of this, apart from the revelation of Sir Gus's warning, has already been well documented by other sources.

In short, the public will already have made up their mind about Mr Brown's character. And inviting voters to take another look is only likely to confirm their initial impression that the Prime Minister is a control freak whose personality has coloured his administration, damaging both the country and the Labour Party in the process.

Mr Brown's desire for control, and inability to trust people to make their own decisions, has manifested itself in a huge increase in the power of central government, financed by profligate spending that has seen the public deficit grow to almost unmanageable proportions. Meanwhile, his brooding, introspective nature is now reflected in his own party, perpetually agonising over Mr Brown's leadership and becoming ever more fractious and fragmented.

There may be little that is new in the latest analysis of the Prime Minister's failings. But that is entirely the point. Taking a second look at Mr Brown merely confirms what we already know, that his Government's record is one of wasteful failure and that, while David Cameron may still have much to do to make the case for voting Conservative, the case against Labour has been made most eloquently by the Prime Minister himself.