Blimey. Gordon Brown takes risks - shock! OK, so some of them didn't pay off (he still can't tell a joke to save his life: he still can't pronounce "Bournemouth"). But the biggest ones did.
Getting Sarah to introduce him (the risk being that it would look like nobody else loves him) was a masterstroke.
And he got away with apologising for the 10p tax debacle; hinting at spending cuts ahead; acknowledging his own unpopularity; and even the brutal attack on David Cameron for putting his children in the public eye (the line that Brown's children were "people, not props" caused arguments in Number 10 right to the last minute, I hear).
Leaders in peril should never play safe, and the pathologically cautious Brown has finally grasped this. Weirdly, it has taken an economic crisis to make him and like a prime minister not a chancellor.
But it's not over yet. I heard something really startling this afternoon, which if it comes true may well shake the kaleidoscope all over again. Hope to tell you more about it in this weekend's Observer.....
