So Gordon Brown has bottled it?

According to the BBC the PM has told Andrew Marr that he is looking to 2009 to go to the country. Frankly I'm relieved. People might actually turn up now on Nov 5th if they are not in the middle of covering an election. Interesting according to an economist I interviewed last week, Brown's best chances for maximising his time in Downing Street is if he goes to the country in 2007 or 8; 2009 is late. Mostly politicians go too early - Atlee being the worst example....in fact the only ones who have gone late are Blair and Thatcher in 2001 and 1983 respectively.
I wrote a piece about this last week that got squeezed out (Sigh - the life of a freelancer)

On a more cheerful note I went to the Independents 21st bash last night, held upstairs in the Angel opposite the old offices in City Rd. Spookily even though it's eight years since I left everyone looked the same (and I wasn't drinking so this is not down to alcohol).
It reminded me of being a young and nervous trainee, sent off to the Women of the Year lunch at the last moment, terrified I was going to be late, and sacrificing my last few pounds on a taxi (so as not to get the sack for missing the story).
I had just got in the cab, when a man ran out of the Independent offices, equally in a hurry and asked if he could share the cab. I rather brusquely asked where he was going and gave in with bad grace; weighing up the chance of being able to eat dinner that night if he shared the fare versus being late.
He was niceness itself in comparison and asked me who I was what I was doing at the Inde, what story....I felt I had to reciprocate and rather gruffly asked who he was.
"Oh my name's Andy Marr," he said.
Horrorstruck and expecting to be sacked immediately he could phone the editor to tell him about this grumpy trainee, I could only stammer 'You don't look like your byline picture'...
Luckily I think he never did tell anyone about quite what a gauche northerner they had picked to be one of the trainees that year