Very unhappy about the vote today on 42 days detention without trial! Gordon Brown got it through – just – with the DUP bailing him out at the very last.

Talk of all sorts of deals – rumoured and actual – flying around – but this sort of issue shouldn’t be up for bargaining. It should be about principles, not horse-trading.

Sat through pretty much all the seven hour debate in Parliament – and the case for locking people up for a month and a half without any trial just wasn’t made. Protecting our liberties should be at the core of what we do but – oh how ironic – once again it looks as if it’s the House of Lords that will be better safeguard of our democratic freedoms than the Commons.

So – Gordon Brown flows over many column inches in The Times today defending his insistence on introducing 42 days detention without charge.

He holds forth in fulsome manner over the ‘compromises’, the judicial oversight, the need to come to Parliament for a vote if time beyond 28 days is necessary etc. There’s much to disagree with on the grounds which he chooses to argue – such as how meaningful will Parliamentary oversight really be if we’re all asked to vote suddenly after a new terror horror or scare? Those are just the circumstances in which you get rushed judgements, faulty information (think how often the initial media reports get major things wrong when there is a terrorist incident) and bad or blind decision making.

But what’s really striking is what’s missing from his piece. All those column inches today and not one single example of an instance where more than 28 days was needed. Not one example of where something went wrong because the 28 day limit was reached. Not one example of where something nearly went wrong until a a lucky break just before the 28 day limit was reached. Just not one example to back up his case. That gives it all away.

Instead, he tries to scare us with stories – about the thousands of hours of work now needed to sort through many aliases, many computers, many countries. And yet – no word about employing more people or more computers instead to speed up investigations

When you’re proposing to curtail our liberties – to say it’s OK for innocent people (because yes, many people arrested do turn out to be innocent) to be locked up for long periods – you really do need to make a careful case, with evidence and examples and explaining why the alternatives aren’t sufficient. Do that – and I’m all ears. Failed to do that – and no, I’m not persuaded.

Perhaps one shouldn’t interfere with private grief – but I am intrigued by the post-mortems being conducted by numerous people in the Labour Party on the lines of – Gordon Brown, what went wrong? I think there are two main political strategy dilemmas facing the party.

First, keep Gordon or ditch Gordon? Can he really recover from plunging to such depths of unpopularity? Given the increasing volatility of political opinion in recent years, there should be a degree of caution over “worst ratings since the 1930s” type headlines – but there’s no doubt the situation is grim for Labour.

Second – whether with Gordon at the helm or not – should Labour move leftwards? And this is why coming across an old opinion poll recently caught my eye. Back in September 2004 (you know, in those far off days when Gordon Brown was popular, all football matches started at 3pm on a Saturday and there were only three TV channels), YouGov had a poll asking the public to rate various leading politicians on a left-right scale. Now, I’m not a huge fan of such scales – because they strip out other important dimensions, such as liberal vs authoritarian (increasingly important these days!) – but they do have a certain crude use.

And what did the YouGov poll find? Blair was viewed as slightly right of centre (+4), voters put themselves on average slightly left of centre (-2), Charles Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats a bit further left of centre (-15), Gordon Brown further left (-22) and Labour MPs overall at -25. Michael Howard and the Conservatives were way off to the right at +52

Issues like the 10p tax rate fiasco are hardly ones which have left Gordon Brown with a similar left-wing image now. So – does he try to regain that former reputation, which went along with much greater personal popularity back then, or does he doggedly try to stick to a middle ground which – under New Labour and Blair – has steadily drifted to the right? Not an easy choice to make!

And so, Gordon’s answer to the 10p tax rate rebellion is … to announce a review that’ll report in a few months time.

It seems that has been his answer to most major problems over the last decade and more – set up a review, put off a decision. As I wrote just before he became Prime Minister:

On far too many [issues] – such as pensions, the NHS and climate change – his response has been to set up long-term commissions under outsiders to tell him what to do. We have all had to suffer from lack of action whilst he has inched towards a conclusion.

Now, I’m no objector to careful consideration of issues, getting in advice, or preparing the ground carefully – but reviews need to be a means to making an effective, timely decision – and not a means to prevaricate. This slow moving, hugely cautious approach could – like his shying away from public leadership – be caught out very badly if he is in Number 10.

It looks like Gordon Brown is staying true to type!