Clarke has more to say about Brown than a few weeks ago

In the wake of Labour's loss of the Norwich North by-election, it looks as though former Home Secretary Charles Clarke is less reluctant to tell us what he thinks of Gordon Brown than he was five weeks ago.

Here's what he said then:

Q: "Will you tell us what you think about Gordon Brown?"
A: "No."



But today's BBC website has rather more detail on what Mr Clarke thinks of Mr Brown now:

Ex-home secretary Charles Clarke blamed the result on Mr Brown's "incompetent" treatment of outgoing MP Dr Ian Gibson … Mr Clarke - the MP for neighbouring Norwich South and a long-time critic of the prime minister - said there had been no "guiding principles" to the prime minister's handling of the expenses scandal.

"What happened to Ian Gibson was not fair and many, many people felt that," Mr Clarke told the BBC. "You need the transparency, you need a comprehensive approach, you need fairness and you need it to be done quickly and these things didn't happen."