You have to say things like this when you are already in power:

I think I’m the right person to take people through these difficult times.

What he really means is that “the electorate think I’m a loser, and my deputy wants my job. But it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.”

Especially when the most prevalent and immediate issue for him is one which should have been his strongest – the economy.

I want Brown to stay. He’s doing such a good job for us. But when he has to come out with statemnts like this, and when this becomes the headline of the article, you know that his time is growing close to the end. It really comes down to whether the men in grey suits [or a woman in a white one?] can wield the soon-to-be-bloody knife.