Gordon Brown needs to improve his spin

Conservatives who tuned in to Terry Wogan's breakfast show on BBC Radio 2 in recent days will have been squirming as the veteran broadcaster and his listeners turned their satirical fire on David Cameron. Purporting to have misheard his "I'm a man with a plan" line during the Tory conference speech, they have been debating whether he actually said 'I'm a man with a flan', 'I'm a man with a van' or even 'I'm a man with a pram'.
 
The scepticism of Wogan and his followers is justified. Cameron, despite delivering yet another speech devoid of policy meat, was treated the next day to the kind of headlines the Tories would have written for themselves: "A Prime Minister in waiting," drooled the sometimes Cameron-sceptic Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.

This highlights one of the differences between David Cameron and Gordon Brown. Cameron has a good old-fashioned hack as his media minder - former News of the World editor Andy Coulson. In him the Tories have an operator who can read what the media will do in the way Alastair Campbell did for Tony Blair in the early days.

None of the people who have served in this role for Brown has measured up to Coulson or Campbell and it is no surprise in media circles that, in pursuit of his personal survival strategy, Brown has been making changes - and that Campbell himself is set to reappear in Westminster.

In last week's reshuffle, Brown sidelined two key figures. His press officer, Damian McBride, often accused of counter-productive attempts to bully journalists, has been given a "strategy" role that comes with the tag "not allowed to speak to journalists", while Stephen Carter, who arrived at Number 10 in January to be Brown's strategy chief, has been made a minister in Peter Mandelson's Business department. He is to be replaced by a new director of communications, yet to be appointed.

Like Mandelson, Carter is not an MP and so will be elevated to the House of Lords in order that he can take on his new ministerial role, responsible for communications, technology and broadcasting. (As a former head of Ofcom, the appointment makes some sense.)

The new man in the media hot seat at Number 10 is Justin Forsyth, formerly the PM's international development special adviser. A former campaign and policy director at Oxfam, he's also worked with Tony Blair on Africa and climate change issues.

According to Jackie Ashley in the Guardian, "Forsyth's great skill is keeping the huge non-governmental organisation lobby onside to such an extent that after having left Oxfam and working for Blair for a year, the former prime minister is said to have remarked: 'I am still trying to get Justin to come and work for me.'"

But Brown's slender hopes of giving Labour a fourth term in Government rest on the contribution he can get from recreating the partnership that made New Labour such a formidable electoral machine - strategy guru Peter Mandelson and spinmeister Alastair Campbell.
 
Mandelson, as we all know, is back as Business Minister and there is no doubt that as the general election draws near he will play a prominent role in shaping Labour's campaign and communications strategy. He remains unbeatable in the art of 'creating a message'.

Although Campbell has told Brown he does not want his old job back officially, he is a committed Party man who played a crucial role this summer in the decision of prominent Blairites to rally behind Brown. Today's Independent reports that he is expected to a play "a key role" in the Labour campaign for the European and county council elections next June.

The bizarre story of Mandelson's Greek taverna lunch with Shadow Chancellor George Osborne proves two things: first, that Osborne is a good spinner - the best spinners use telling phrases like "dripping pure poison" - and second that Mandelson is a man the Tories fear. After all, they have learned many lessons from the Mandelson spin manual. ·