Can Brown upstage Mandy?

The hall was almost full for Mandy’s rather self-centred speech where he told Labour that it has a fight on his hands.  He is not wrong.

Will anyone out there understand his joke at the expense of Ken Clarke?

I would ask Ken Clarke, but his mobile phone and blackberry always seem to be turned off. Or given that he keeps privately agreeing with me, perhaps David Cameron has cut it off.

Or this:

Not for the first time, Boy George is sailing close to the wind.

But, of course, he was speaking to the Labour party and not to the country.  That is Brown’s job tomorrow.

Yes, it was a good performance with countless sound bites for the news bulletins as he pledged his loyalty, yet again, to Brown.

Perhaps saying the, "British people have their minds on the future” could been more tactfully worded, along with his comment that Kinnock wasn't going to win in 1992.

Was Mandy's speech too good?

The one that has to be remembered as the speech of the week, and reported by the media as the success story that saves his premiership, is the one Brown makes tomorrow.  If the media conclude otherwise, Mandy wouldn't have done his master any favours what-so-ever.