Britannia Radio

Time for Gordon Brown to return to the Commons

No one blames the former prime minister for taking a bit of time out, but it's time he joined Alistair Darling, Jack Straw and Harriet Harman in holding the government to account

Gordon Brown saying goodbye to colleagues and staff at No 10 before resigning as prime minister. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

Where's Gordon Brown? What's he up to? He's not been seen in the chamber of the Commons, though I'm told he took the oath to become an MP again after the 6 May election, which he lost to what turned out to be the Lib-Con coalition.

MPs are aware of his absence, while the media has begun to make inquiries and suggestions, some merely curious, others malicious. Is he recuperating and enjoying quality time with the kids? Is he writing his memoirs to beat Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson to the publishers this autumn? Etc, etc. There are some nasty suggestions circling in the blogosphere.

Only solid Clem Attlee, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Sunny Jim Callaghan were never the object of this particular sort of "he's lost it" name-calling, so far as I can remember. Even John Major was accused of cracking up in a mean article in the Times, co-authored, I think, by a hack who is now a pillar of the Mail.

In today's Daily Mail, Richard Littlejohn earns his modest fee by devoting much of the space for his weekly column – it appears on Fridays if you want to avoid it – to a "Wanted – have you seen this man?" poster. He offers a bottle of champagne to any reader who can prove Brown is still alive.

To anyone unfamiliar with Richard's oeuvre I should explain here that he doesn't do subtle. It's done his career no harm at all. GB may have had plastic surgery, he warns. Ho ho.

So where is the ex-prime minister, I occasionally ask Labour MPs who were and remain friendly. They say he's fine and at home in North Queensferry, high above the Firth of Forth on the northern bank. "He's reading and chilling," one friend said yesterday. I stood with colleagues in the street outside – we later got a drink in the garden – the day he and Sarah Macaulay got married. It's a modest property, very un-Blair.

I think we can all understand why he might want to pause and reflect after 13 years in power and its abrupt end – and to wish him no harm for it. I sense those friendly MPs are being a bit protective, not keen to say much, but if Brown were experiencing a dark night of the soul, it would not be surprising, would it?

All the same, if just writing a book or playing Lego, I think he's making a mistake by not showing his face in the Commons. Jack Straw and Alistair Darling, the only other cabinet members who did the whole 13-year stint, are back in their places, earning their corn by holding their successor ministers to account. Harriet Harman, who was also in office most of that time, is positively thriving as acting Labour leader.

It's not as if MPs wouldn't be generous to GB if he popped up on the backbenches one day. They're always nice to the defeated. Labour MPs will feel sorry for him – not very sorry in many cases, but a bit – and the Lib-Cons can afford to be kind. Certainly kinder than ex-defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, who gave vent to his own frustrations the other day. He's a very straight guy is Ainsworth, so I tend to believe him.

All the more reason for Brown to show up. Throughout his career he has shown a weakness for bottling awkward personal decisions, writing essays on courage as a substitute, some people think. He was famously Macavity the Cabinet Cat during many of Tony Blair's crisis moments, conspicuously late to declare his support.

Come on, Gordon, the airport's just across the bridge and turn right. The flight to Heathrow is barely an hour. It won't hurt as much as you think, and you'll feel better afterwards.