liability to his party, which, we also believe, has little chance of winning the next election.

With an indubitably Brownian sense of occasion, the PM celebrated the end of his exciting first year in office yesterday by publishing a pamphlet on "the third stage of reform needed to achieve excellence and fairness in public services", and spent most of the rest of the day in Manchester with police community support officers and students. At least he got to link hands with his neighbours in the VIP stand and sing happy birthday to Nelson Mandela in Hyde Park in the evening.

Trying to escape momentarily from 365 days punctuated by natural disasters, an election that never was, atrocious opinion polls, even worse byelections, a catastrophic bank run, economic slowdown, a badlybotched tax reform, rapidly soaring oil prices and steadily falling house prices, Brown began by seeking sanctuary once more in his school days.

In a tantalising glimpse of the man that might have been, he spoke of the eye surgery that saved his sight at the age of 16 - but let slip that impressive though the NHS op to reattach his retina was, it was not the surgery that made the biggest impression on him so much as the booze trolley that came around the wards afterwards.

"At the age of 16," the PM told the BBC, "when you know you've got a free health service and then when you're getting free beer, free Guinness and free wine, that's quite an amazing thing to happen."

Later, Brown spoke to police