Charles batters Gordon's chips

THERE'S nothing like helpful advice from a friend, not that Charles Clarke would really liked to be described as a buddy of Gordon Brown. Mr Clarke is a bruiser, a sometimes abrasive politician who is fully signed up to New Labour. And he fears the whole project could come tumbling down as the Prime Minister flails about in the undergrowth while David Cameron's Conservative bloom and grow in the sunshine.

It will take more than a relaunch - number seven in the past 10 months, according calculations from Conservative Central Office - for Mr Brown to get back in favour with voters. There is a real fear in Labour circles that the party - without a general secretary since November when Peter Watt resigned in disgrace - will lose the upcoiming Crewe and Nantwich by-election to the Conservatives. If it happens, it will be the Tories' first by-election gain from Labour for more than two decades.

Mr Brown almost tearfully told us how he shared the pain of the 5million souls who have lost out to his incredible lack of hudgement in axing the 10p starting rate of tax. To many voters, it was the last straw, and tipped up at the polling stations last week to give Labour a thumping it probably deserved.

Enter Mr Clarke. He proposes that Gordon Brown should act to address “short-term errors which week-by-week erode confidence in Labour’s competence and capacity” - starting with a mid-term Budget to address the 10p problem, abandoning proposals to increase the period of pre-charge detention to 42 days, cccepting progressive proposlas on women’s pensions to avoid defeat in the Lords, and suspending the current “over-bureaucratic” review of post offices.

There's no sign Labour will do this. But for former colleagues to openly question the direction of the Prime Minister's leadership can only add to the electorate's view that the UK is led by someone out of touch with party and the public.