Could Mr Brown's temper be the last straw?

Yesterday the Prime Minister was interviewed on Radio 4's You and Yours programme. He came close to losing his temper with the interviewer and the phone-in callers.

We've heard of leaks from Downing Street of mobile phones being thrown across the room, sulks and shouting matches, though none of this can be substantiated. So how will this play out in a general election campaign?

Given that there are usually some difficult times for Premiers during the campaign, think of the Belgrano phone-in question to Mrs Thatcher in 1983 or the NHS clash with a mother of a bone marrow disease girl in the 2001 election campaign for Tony Blair. Never mind John Prescott's fisticuffs in the same campaign!

How will Mr Brown cope in similar circumstances? By then the recession may still be gripping the land, there will be high unemployment, maybe more bank bail-outs and the national debt will be astronomic. There may still be a push for the PMs acknowledgement that he got some things wrong.

Could it be that under the pressure of even more lack of sleep, travelling the land day and night, a stressful campaign, maybe a pseudo leadership campaign all under dire economic news, that Mr Brown verbally lashes out at a voter?

It cannot be discounted, for we have not seen the PM at the forefront of any election campaign, spearheading the BBC Question Time leader questions (I can't remember him ever being on QT) or confronted by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. We don't know how he'd react. If he does lose it, it will be game over.

Squiffy.