It is the crappiest job in politics. You are the MP sent out to face the media in aftermath of an disastrous election defeat. You have two choices. You can blame it on the world economy and the weather and suggest that it is just a mid-term blip. Or you can do the right thing which Yvette Cooper did this afternoon and admit that you have screwed up Big Time and need to make amends, fast.

Actually, the really crappiest job in politics is the PR mastermind who somehow has to transform Gordon Brown back in to a man who can win elections. And this does feel like Mission Impossible. Or rather this feels like an impossible mission because the Prime Minister is not Tom Cruise and can’t shoot his way out of this predicament.

The polls are rotten and the momentum has gone. His political capital is worth less than a briefcase full of Northern Rock shares. Like John Major is has taken over from a political legend and become a political liability. After a brief honeymoon Brown has been swamped by ugly political reality and doesn’t have the ability to change the political weather. Just like the man with the underpants over his trousers. But which John Major is he?

Is he the 1991 John Major who survived economic disaster, personal ridicule and party indifference to triumph at the polls? Or is he the 1996 John Major, exposed as a man without a political strategy, devoid of policy vision and trapped by public hostility to his party?

One factor that makes me think that we are actually in the latter scenario is the opposition. In 1991 Labour were not ready for power. By 1996 they had a bright young leader who was a real break with the past and who had a sparkling sense of a modern Britain. In 2007 I again get the sense that the country is prepared to give Change a go. If anything Cameron’s problem may actually be that he has peaked too soon.

I say that because the economy will get better before the next General Election. Gordon can’t get any worse (can he?). And as the spotlight falls upon the Conservatives people may feel they prefer the devil they know and give Labour one more go. But right now I think there is more chance of my team beating Manchester United at Old Trafford tomorrow.