Simon Carr: Labour's campaign may end in their coming third

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He's always having to make "the speech of his life". He never does but he's always back for another go. Then he's given "until Christmas" by his enemies but he reappears in the New Year being indomitable. Face like dog food but dressed and ready to "meet and master" the challenges of staying in office. Before he stood up today his Government was polling below the Liberals. Maybe I will be rewarded for having dared to dream the impossible dream.

I think lefties would have liked the speech, especially on television. You could have taken two tea-breaks. We had to do with standing ovations to stretch our legs.

It was long, again. He's always long. It kills him because his point gets lost. It's his father's fault. Brown never escapes the pulpit oratory he grew up with. Old fashioned preaching bellows a series of fantastic assertions that he takes no trouble to explain. If you don't believe them already they strike you as silly.

But they liked it in the hall, it has to be said. They were believers. It made them feel good about being fighting collectivists. We had a whooper in front of us. She had a hoot that went in one ear and came out the other like a javelin. Yes, I suffer, but I don't complain. It's service, you see. I sketch to serve.

Gordon ranged over the £600bn he spends every year and pulled out some examples where people had benefited. Hoot, hoot! Minimum wage. Waiting lists. School buildings. Scrapping that vile tory plan for ID cards. Yes, real achievements.

But that's enough of that. Pop singer Bono said to camera: "Gordon Brown is what makes Britain great." The man's an idiot!

Sarah Brown caused several diabetic episodes in the hall with her matrimonial endorsements. I could take "my husband, my hero" but when she thanked voters "for welcoming us into the heart of your communities" there was a dangerous moment with the late lunch. And when she said Gordon went to bed and got up in the morning thinking of the country and "always, always putting you first" then I knew I shouldn't have risked the second sundae. And if he does think of the country all the time why is she so sure they'll "be together for all times"? Make sure you have emergency supplies of insulin if you watch the replay.

So intense, so gentle, he asks so many questions! "That's why I love him as much as I do." She's going, Captain, I canna hold her!

Gordon. If you like the sort of things he does, you'll forgive him the oratorical defects. Me, I get short of breath at defects that stem from his personality.

His sectarian isolation. His view of Conservatives is pathological. He will "reject every piece of conservative advice." Why? "They are consistently wrong all the time?" Wot, always?

So he has to justify his psychotic view and that means saying tories will take active and unhealthy pleasure in cutting funding for schools and hospitals. It aint true.

And then to dramatise his rectitude he's going to pass a law to make it illegal not to halve the deficit in four years. But only because he knows he won't be in power to be arrested when it doesn't happen.

Gordon believes that "measures, not men" are the important thing. Napoleon believed that in war "moral qualities" (i.e. Men) outweighed "materiel" (i.e. Measures) by three to one. If Napoleon is right, Gordon is suffering under a massive misapprehension and a fatal election strategy of his own devising.

It may yet happen; Labour's Go Fourth campaign may end in their coming third.