Recipe for disaster

1. Take years of choking back the words you really want to say, endlessly repeating the platitudes you think will please, the markets, the City, the floating voters, the Murdoch press, the Daily Mail, the constituents of marginal constituencies, party donors, religious minorities, religious majorities, hard working families, young people, old people, urban voters, rural voters, suburban voters, any people with a vote...

2. Bottle it all up.

3. Shake vigorously in the rough and tumble of a high-pressure election campaign.

4. Watch in horror as the seething inner rage you've been trying to suppress is sprayed all over the front pages to be lapped up by people who despise you.

"Bottler" Brown, indeed.