SURELY it can’t be true that Gordon Brown will shrug off the recession and call a ‘Who is the PM for a crisis?’ general election? Or will he?

A glance at the polls would appear to rule it out immediately. Despite Labour’s astonishing bounce back since the great bank bail-out, the party remains five-seven points behind the Conservatives. Furthermore, we all know the cautious nature of the finger nail-biting Prime Minister. This was the man who backed out of an election when he was ahead, remember.

Yet many MPs – particularly Tories – are convinced Mr Brown will go to the country within months because, whatever the polls say, it will be his best chance.

That analysis rests on one simple belief – that it makes no sense to argue you are the man for a crisis after that crisis has happened.

After 11 years during which the nation has grown bored and bitter with Labour, Mr Brown’s one chance is to convince voters that the Tories are clueless in the face of the recession.

And to do that, so the argument runs, he must gamble by calling the election before the worst of the economic whirlwind has struck – which means in the next few months.

By May, 2010, the recession will (surely?) be over, but will voters really reward the Government on flimsy evidence that it might have been even worse under David Cameron? It’s unlikely.

Those believers in an early election will have noted Mr Brown’s careful answer on the weekend, when he said it was “the furthest thing from my mind”. He could have ruled it out – but didn’t.

One scenario is another jaw-dropping “fiscal stimulus” in a March budget and an immediate campaign when the Tories oppose it as reckless. It would be a defining election, to settle the very purpose of government.

But I can’t sign up to this early election theory. Labour was behind in all but one of 100-plus polls last year, and will stay there as the gloom deepens.

A five-point win for David Cameron would make the Tories the largest party in a hung Parliament and force Mr Brown to quit No.10 one year early. That leaves little option but to wait until 2010 – and hope something turns up.

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TONY and Gordon had been getting on so well since the former left No. 10 to become “Middle East peace envoy”. Then came the latest Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

Asked why Mr Blair was invisible in the first week of the crisis, Mr Brown replied: “Tony’s on holiday”. The envoy’s aides said that was “totally untrue”, insisting he had been “working tirelessly” behind the scenes.