Does Brown realise the weakness of his own position?

The papers are ghastly for Brown this morning.

For once Jackie Ashley is on the money.  This is the deadly:

The truth is that Brown has always been double-sided in his political personality and now the whole country knows it. The ideologically serious, morally driven statesman, whose steely determination was most recently on view in his successful handling of the G20, has lived his life with a sinister twin, spinning and dealing. McBride has been an extension of that other self.

It gets worse for Brown.  Here is Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun:

The PM likes to be seen as a bookish intellectual, a Son of the Manse devoted to “the right thing”.

In fact he spends more of his remorseless energy plotting against perceived enemies — Labour and Tory — than on making Britain great again.

then

He hand-picks smiling assassins such as Charlie Whelan and Damian McBride as hired guns, digging dirt and squirreling it away for later deployment.

and finally

This was a sinister and unscrupulous operation to malign the next government. It was intended to hurt anyone in range, including innocent bystanders.

Astonishingly, considering his own breakdown, Draper was even prepared to smear the wife of George Osborne with hints of depression.

Whatever denials or apologies are now issued, that smear is now as indelible as it is distressing.

Having disposed of his Rottweiler, Mr Brown has washed his hands of the affair.

But can he seriously claim that he had no idea what was going on?

One Labour MP who has been subjected to briefings from No 10 has said:

Gordon is the biggest spinner in politics - he talks up his precious morality and acts as if he's purer than the driven snow, but he allows his people to do things on his behalf that are just repulsive.

So Prime Minister, no more talk

….of a “moral compass” and “I spend all my time fighting the recession”

….of “a different type of politics - a more open and honest dialogue”

….on calling on religious leaders to help develop a "shared moral sense" that will govern markets and the economy

…that "I'm not very interested in the trappings of office. I'm interested in what you can actually do to help people."

Cameron has rightly turned on Brown and demanded a public apology.

The monumental consequence of “McBridegate'” for Brown is nobody is going to believe his sincerity on any matter.  Voters have already stopped listening to him, now they are just going to turn away.

Guido has a cartoon on his blog this morning indicating that Brown will be his third slap after Hain and McBride.  Fawkes follows this up with other deadly information on when Draper met Brown.  That illustration may have to be updated rather sooner than many us think.