A clunking fist and brass neck
Watching him at that inquiry, you could see why he's still so close in the polls - having trashed the UK economy so badly.
No other politician could have given that performance at the Iraq inquiry. No one else would have been so shameless.
Basra? Can't talk about that, he says. The SAS were there. Defence funding? It went up by 10 per cent. What's the problem?
The number of wars Britain fought went up 500 per cent (when you count Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Desert Fox in 1989).
But his tactic - bore everyone to death with statistics, just like he does on budget day - covers up the most egregious of errors.
Brown is a confidence trickster, pure and simple. He acts innocent, and feels innocent. It's as if his guilt glands were bypassed at birth.
He talks about a "global" recession, while his policies inflated a debt bubble which burst and meant the UK was hit hardest.
In Afghanistan yesterday he should have inspected AMERICAN troops and seen the helicopters which Our Boys lack.
It's this brass neck that keeps him in power. And it might yet deprive David Cameron of outright victory.
For the next few weeks, Brown will continue his brass-neck act: Behaving on the campaign just as he did in the Iraq inquiry.
I hear he is going to BOAST about having "created" 2.5 million new jobs in Britain since Labour took power in 1997. But every single one of these new jobs is accounted for either by immigration or by public sector expansion.
He will BOAST about having "saved the banks". But they aren't saved: They are now zombie banks, eating taxpayer cash.
And he will BOAST about his refusal to cut spending. Yet his policies will land us with £500 billion of debt by the end of the decade.
The Tories listen to him and ask: "How can he get away with this?" The answer: Because you lot are too useless to take him on.
Where are the Tory fighters? Since David Davis resigned we hardly see any left.The Tories have been too busy reeling from their own unforced errors.
Gordo walked into the Iraq inquiry knowing he'd face the second- worst bunch of interrogators in Britain. The worst are the Tories.
Most politicians would crumble if their economic plans had led to disaster - as have Brown's. But he is shameless. That's his strength. The Gordonator just keeps on going as if nothing had happened.
Today's News of the World poll shows most voters think Cameron will fail to win outright victory at the election
This would be a disaster: For the Tories, and Britain. It would mean deep instability and perhaps a second election within a year.
It should be a walkover. When you think of Brown's record - on the military and the economy - he deserves to be routed in the polls.
But if he is not, the Tories will only have themselves to blame.
FRASER NELSON is Editor of The Spectator.
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