Brown ‘has lost the plot’

These days Our Man can’t even go on a site visit without being closely watched.  As Alan Johnson continues to make his mark as Home Secretary, back at the construction headquarters the atmosphere has turned rather sour.

Gordon Brown, the architect of The Grand Plan to clean-up MPs’ expenses, is having a few problems getting his design approved:

I have never known such venom in the tea-room. No one has a good word to say about the stupid so-and-so (Mr Brown) for starting this whole thing.

There was real anger at how Gordon had managed to get us into this deep mess - where the process was started with good intentions but has not been thought through.

A cabinet minster adds to the disarray:

His handling of expenses has been disastrous. By now, we should be moving on to the clean-up through the new rules to be proposed by the Kelly Committee [on Standards in Public Life]. Instead we have gone back to square one. It sends a terrible signal to the public.

MPs join the chorus:

….If the Prime Minister thought he was going to draw a line by launching Legg, it has achieved the opposite effect.

….There's a lot of muttering about Gordon Brown's role in all of this. When he set up the inquiry he failed to give it a proper, precise remit.

….Gordon Brown was a shambles – I think he has lost the plot. There's a feeling that Legg might be the trigger for one last attempt to remove him.

Brown would have been better advised to work the tea-room, rather than keep an eye on what Alan Johnson is up to.

The cloud that is MPs’ expenses scandal could well have a ‘silver lining’.  We will just have to ‘follow our money’.