In today's Observer Andrew Rawnsley, whose Servants Of The People is the best book I've ever read about the early days of the first Blair government, offers this rather interesting perspective on the recent travails of Gordon Brown.
Basically, he says that while Gordon's first few months have been horrifically bumpy, we shouldn't write him off yet. Interestingly, he points this out with reference to John Major's 1992 election win, against all the odds and the expectations of pretty much everybody, including his own party. As he says, I'd forgotten that election win - I remember Black Wednesday, which effectively destroyed him.
Rawnsley makes the very good point that, while the Northern Rock debacle, the lost CDs, the ongoing donations affair and the vacillation about the election were all embarrassing and harmful, Gordon still hasn't faced a Prime Minster-wrecking catastrophe on the scale of the Poll Tax Riots or Black Wednesday.
He also makes the good point, which I keep forgetting, that this is not a new government. It's an old one, run by a man who has been at the centre of power in this country for over a decade.