“The brazenness with which Mr Brown reduced the election ahead to a battle between the rich and the rest has one advantage at least: it exposed the fraudulence of his claim to govern for all the people, or whatever the phrase was that he used when he first took over in 2007. He governs for himself and his party, first and always.
And, like the Russians retreating before Napoleon, Mr Brown pursues a scorched earth strategy. Its purpose is two-fold: to put the Tories on the spot as an Opposition by driving them towards difficult policy choices that can then be demolished, while doing everything to ensure that if they do get in, they will find the wells have been filled and the fields ploughed with salt.”