Gordon Brown on heat

I trust I don't go out of my way to be vulgar but sometimes no other idiom will do. This is the case, for example, with the contortions Gordon Brown is putting himself through to ingratiate himself with the English electorate:

"GORDON Brown stumbled over the issue of national identity yesterday, naming England, not Scotland, as the team he'd like to win the World Cup.

Announcing the launch of the English bid for the 2018 World Cup, Mr Brown said he hoped the host nation would win the tournament. When talking about the English, he repeatedly used the word "we". When asked what about the Scotland team, he said only that they would "do well."

Aware of the error, Mr Brown later tried to qualify his comments, insisting he would support Scotland in any game against England."

English voters, there's no other way of putting it. Well, there is but I think we can and must say Gordon Brown has the horn for you - big time. And it's not pretty.

Because I don't think he really does want England to win the 2018 World Cup.

Most of us don't - even those of us who are unionists.

There's a cultural misunderstanding here, which we saw during the last World Cup. It has to do with the fact that while the Englishman who convinces himself that England is going to win may be quite sad, he is not necessarily insane since it is not entirely outside the bounds of possibility.

On the other hand, a similar conviction in a Scotsman in relation to his national team would be an obvious sign of mental illness.

So we don't take it anything like as seriously as you do. But we don't want you to win anyway. Well some of us do but they're all either Rangers supporters or posh folk.

According to Charlie Wheelan, Gordon Brown was gutted when Scotland was humped by England in Euro two-thousand and something. [Can't remember exactly when but it was the time you lot went on to get beaten by the Teutons in a penalty shoot-out. Which was fun.] Yet there he was trying to pretend that this made his cup overfloweth, or something.

And now this.

Thinking on the ingratiating yourself to the electorate/dating/having the horn theme, then - how impressed is the potential voter/date going to be with someone who is obviously that desperate?