Ten Problems

My first problem with Gordon Brown becoming P.M. is that he wants the job too much. 

My second problem is that he's such an ungracious beast. Where other ministers who opposed Blair have had the decency to resign, Brown has squatted in the Treasury and sulked and pulled sour faces and issued disloyal but unattributable briefings. It's not been pretty.

My third problem is that he seems to feel he's entitled to the succession- even though the electorate dislikes him and surveys show that almost anybody else might have a better chance against the Tories. 

My fourth  problem- which is a distillation of the first three- is that he's addicted to power (and according to his civil servants) heavy-handed in his uses of it.

My fifth problem is that he's just issued a book (I can't believe he actually wrote it) called Portraits of Courage or something of the sort, full of hagiography and uplift and neo-Victorian yuck. Oh dear , here comes another unthinking, preachy Christian!

My sixth problem is that he supported the war in Iraq (though this applies to every other possible candidate)

My seventh problem is that I haven't a clue what he actually stands for. 

My eighth problem is that he's been around- and in office-  too long.  

My ninth problem is that he doesn't appear to have a life outside politics (though this applies to every other possible candidate)

My tenth problem is that (because he's afraid of losing Scotland to the SNP) he's been spouting all this patently insincere, old-fashioned nonsense about Britishness.

But he's going to become Prime Minister next month, isn't he? And there's not a thing we can do about it...