After the way Gordon Brown has been treated by The Sun, I might give him another chance. He's clearly a decent man being bullied.

A decent man who has left our troops in Afganistan without equipment - yet has given 100s of billions of pounds to the bankers. Taken away the 10% tax rate from the poor. Demonised Muslims. Bottled every decision including his biscuits.

I agree the Sun has bullied him and that is wrong. But a vote for Gordon Brown is a wasted vote. New Labour as a party are Stalinist and have no ideas. They need time in opposition to rediscover a vision for the UK. Basically they have been in power too long.

It is a shame John Smith never got a go at being PM rather than Major....then Blair may never have happened.......history would be far better if that had happened. Major was a disastrous PM as well.

John Major wasn't the best of PM's but, out of interest, could you explain why you think he was a disaster, BR?

Thats probably got his vote count into double fgures, JK !

Can you remember the dying days of the Major Government?
Were Labour not at that time (with The Sun onside) encouaging similar attacks on John Major ?

Whats good for the goose ....

I know what you mean but sadly the adage "it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it" hasn't been more relevant than to the Blair/Brown administration. So many chances - a free mandate! A working majority in Parliament! - to change things for the better and indeed they did do a lot of good things but that's not what's going to be remembered; instead it'll be The War, clampdowns on personal freedom, endless kowtowing to the media bullies (whereas Obama has the correct attitude, i.e. ignore them altogether and press on with what he was elected to do - good to see the healthcare reforms being passed).

The solution? Forget party divisions; whoever wins the next election should form a coalition government containing the best people from all the main parties. It's absurd that people of the calibre of Vince Cable and Ken Clarke are kept out of power.

I'll probably vote Lib Dem as I usually do but not with any great eagerness. If I were still in Scotland I'd have the option of voting for Alex Salmond's SNP, who are by far and away the best political party going in Britain - a proper alternative to the mainstream and a more than capable leader.

Emma. Read John Major's excellent autobiography - the answers will quickly become very clear to you.

HI Emma

Let me explain.

Under Thatcher she left safeguards so that the privatised companies could not price "Gorge" and raise prices.

Under Major he removed loads of checks and balances for the privatised industries. Blair actually removed even more - so now we have out of control Water - Gas - Electricity and Private Companies.

Privatisation is not bad - it is the lack of control over these private monopolies that is the problem. They act as a cartel.

Major and Lamont also crashed the economy by going into the ERM and then pulling out and pushing interest rates to 15%. This put many people out of their houses with massive repossessions - many people have not forgiven the Tories for that.

He really was awful.

Lamont was a good chancellor and did warn the government about the consequences of joing the ERM. It all happened despite him and he had to carry the can. We could argue that he should have resigned once the decision was made, but he was probably the best man to see us through the crisis, even though wasn't permitted to stay on and do so.

Major was a below average Prime Minister, but he was not a disaster. All of them make mistakes. His greatest mistake was appointing Michael Howard as Home Secretary. This lost him many votes in 1997. Blair arrived with glitz and personality, but sadly no substance. Britain has suffered such awful damage under New Labour that it will take us decades to recover - if we ever do.

How anyone can even contemplate voting Labour is beyond me. Wouldn't it be funny if this was all a set up to to con people into feeling sorry for Brown. He doesn't have much else to fall back on.

Now Mandelson is suggesting that the media are insulting our troops and helping the Taliban by focusing on the Brown letter story. I think that story has been over-exploited, as has the grief of the soldier's mother. But to suggest that it is somehow showing support for the Taliban is utter nonsense. The Sun is what The Sun is - a sleazy tabloid. We cannot expect better from them. But we should expect better from a government. This government has let us down consistently for over a decade. Their eviction is long overdue.

BR- I'm too young to remember it but I'm sure it was Nigel Lawson who started the ERM thing.
Didn't he fall out with Thatcher over following the Deutschmark?