GORDON Brown claimed to be the non-spinning Prime Minister when he came to power 100 days ago, but he has now been badly damaged by trying to spin his way into a snap election.

It was his media lieutenants that went around spinning up a frenzy about the forthcoming poll, and he only added to it by being less than straight with questioners. Then he flew off to Iraq in the middle of the Conservative conference to whip up some enthusiasm about 1,000 servicemen being home for Christmas - when hundreds of them already were.

The past few weeks have been a replay of Mr Brown's bodged attempt to topple Tony Blair a year ago. He marched his lieutenants to the top of the hill, but when the moment came, he was not capable of the daring movement. Hopefully this is not a character trait.

While Mr Brown is the principal architect of his embarrassment, the Tories have played their part, too.

Firstly, for the first time in ten years, they looked like a party that wanted power again. Bar the odd dinosaur such as Lord Tebbit, their conference was remarkably united.

Secondly, Shadow Chancellor George Osborne found some popular targets with his cuts in inheritance tax and stamp duty, and his tax on the "non-domiciles" - very wealthy foreigners living here without being bothered by the taxman.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes Mr Brown to assimilate these policies into his own plans.

Thirdly, in David Cameron the Tories have a leader who is a contender in a way that Michael Howard or Iain Duncan Smith were not. It is, though, a bit of a shame that it was a traditional Tory dogwhistle - the promise of a tax cut - rather than Mr Cameron's novel, futuristic green thoughts that brought his party to heel.

All the lessons, though, are for Mr Brown.

Please just play it straight, Prime Minister. The spin is too transparent. People can easily see through stunts like the Iraq trip. It diminishes yourself and the reputation of politics as a whole. It will not win you an election, whenever you dare to call it.