Paternalists in this mould may be stormily beset by internal demons, but they never, ever admit culpability for anything. Thus Gordon has never once acknowledged having played a part as Chancellor in the country's economic implosion. It's always a worldwide downturn, though he was more than happy to take credit for the good times. When his own flaccid fiscal regime brought on disaster, Gordon cast himself as saviour, even if what he would save you from is himself.

On the heels of the election, the Daily Telegraph ran Anne McElvoy's feature comparing Brown to King Lear, headlined "Flawed grandeur Shakespeare would surely have recognised." Yet what makes any tale "Shakespearean" is Shakespeare. The grandeur of a story is all in the telling (and I should know). Minus the lofty language, Lear is just one more vain, delusional codger. A bad Dad.

Described by Lord Turnbull as "Stalinist", by Lord Mandelson as "angry", Gordon has vowed to "keep learning". But while character transformation is a virtual requirement in novels, I fear this is a literary conceit. Real people tend to stay depressingly the same from Chapter One to their last monotonous page.

Doubtless we'll feel sorry for Gordon whenever he does go, just as kids who never liked their controlling father much will still feel guilty when the old man is bundled off. Once he's no longer a hulking, oppressive, formidable PM but a personally disappointed ex-statesman, his story will seem sad. 

But Gordon's small, individual story is not what's sad. What's sad is this country being ruled by someone whose instincts hew ominously close to those of Vladimir Putin or Robert Mugabe — the sort who in a more vulnerable political system, purely for the sake of the country of course, declares himself Prime Minister for Life. Eschewing an election for a backroom deal in a restaurant, Gordon is not a natural democrat. In refusing to "walk away" for his people's own good, he doesn't give British voters credit for being grown-ups. They shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about government, and should count themselves lucky to rest in the capable, benevolent hands of Big Daddy. Father knows best.

Fortunately, as many a demented potentate discovers in competency hearings, the children will have the last laugh.