Now let's see the real Mr Brown

It seems to have been decided. Gordon Brown is to be the next Prime Minister. John Prescott said as much in the Times interview last Saturday, and that's what everyone in the Labour Party thinks too. Some kind of secret deal has been struck. Naturally, nobody has asked the voters. The only remaining issue is whether the change comes before or after the General Election.

The general view is that Brown will be a different kind of Prime Minister to Tony Blair. But there is no evidence for this. Indeed, there is no evidence for anything as far as Brown is concerned. The only thing we know is that he desperately wants to be Prime Minister. This desperation has had an unfortunate effect on Brown. He never speaks out, or says anything that might incriminate himself, or might be held against him later. This silence is shameful and cowardly.

Take the past few weeks as Blair, his old friend, has battled for his political life over Iraq. There's been no word of support from Brown. The Chancellor never comes to the aid of the Prime Minister, not when he's in trouble. That's how it was during the fuel crisis four years ago, and during the build-up to the Iraq War. Brown hardly ever gives interviews. He just keeps mum, mainly for fear of spoiling his chances of getting into No 10.

We know very little about him, this man who's going to be the next Prime Minister. When he's with Rupert Murdoch or in the United States he makes very Right-wing pronouncements. He explains how concerned he is about the economic sclerosis of the European Union, and calls for radical change. But listen to him at any Labour Party Conference, setting out his stall to the Left of Blair and sabotaging plans for public service reform.

With Right-wing newspaper proprietors he likes to pretend that he's on the side of the hard-working middle classes. Yesterday's meagre tax relief for domestic help was a step in that direction. But the truth is that he has added more to the tax burden of middle income tax payers than any Chancellor in memory.

His lieutenants hint that he is unhappy about the aftermath of the war and as Prime Minister would please the Labour left by putting distance between himself and George Bush. But is this really true? Brown has been silent on this great issue of our day, and that can be taken only as evidence of assent to Blair's policy. He could have followed the example of Robin Cook and resigned, if he really objected.

We all think we know Brown, but actually he would be more of a mystery as Prime Minister even than John Major when he took over in 1990. If Brown really is planning to take over at No 10, it's time he opened up and we were told a lot more.

Just another cup for the elite

All the family went to cheer the Arsenal football team yesterday as Arsene Wenger, Thierry Henry etc came past our door in their open-top bus. But there is one issue where I took issue with football writers praising the achievement of going unbeaten through an entire football league season. They accurately stated that this was the first time it had been achieved in 115 years, but wrongly forecast it would never be done again.

British football has changed. Now there are just three or four teams with a genuine chance of winning the Premiership, a kind of league within the league. That means Arsenal's achievement of going unbeaten will be repeated in the future. Football is worse off for it.

What you see is what you get

Gwyneth Paltrow has given her strapping 9lb 11oz baby, borne this weekend in north London, the unusual name of Apple. Paltrow is following the example of the Beckhams and naming the baby after the place where it was conceived - in this case New York, the Big Apple.

Though Apple is a very pretty name, this is a hazardous procedure. For all Paltrow knows, her next child might be conceived in Slough or, worse still, Birmingham. She should bear in mind the terrible warning within the joke about the Red Indian child who asked his father how little Red Indians got named. "That is very simple," replied the father, "when the baby is born, his father looks out of the wigwam and names the baby after the first thing he sees. If he sees an eagle, then he calls him Bold Eagle. If he sees a stream, he calls him Running Stream. But why do you ask, Two Dogs Shagging?"

Losing the postal plot

As promised last week, I have delved deeper into the strange £1 million Royal Mail donation to the British Olympic Bid. It emerges that the proposal came from Postwatch, the consumer group which allegedly represents Post Office users.

It was eagerly taken up by the Royal Mail, which faced the prospect of a £30 million fine for its failure of service, and was delighted to be let off lightly when Postwatch suggested the £1 million donation.

The question remains: what did Postwatch think that postal users would gain from donating money to the Olympic bid? This is suspicious.

Government ministers must have been delighted. They have been desperately trying to drum up cash to fund the wretched enterprise because Gordon Brown, at the Treasury, has starved it of money.

But postal users would surely prefer any spare millions going around to help improve their woeful service. When I asked Postwatch last week, it was unable to provide any coherent explanation for why the donation was made.

Postwatch must remember that its job is to represent postal customers, and not suck up to government by encouraging fancy donations to officially sponsored causes.

Pints for the memory

The revelation that Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of Poland, worked as a barman in a pub near Arsenal's football ground has caused great excitement around where I live. The pub in question is the Bank of Friendship, in Blackstock Road, one of my favourites when I moved there in the mid-Eighties - but too late to have been served personally by the great man.

However, the future President probably pulled pints for football commentator John Motson. "Motty" was invariably propping up the bar, often on his own. I never spoke to him, but his presence leant a distinction to the Bank of Friendship.

Kwasniewski drawing a pint for Motson is one of those chance encounters of which history is so full, - perhaps comparable to John Prescott serving Sir Anthony Eden on a Cunard cruise liner after the Suez crisis in 1956.