Melissa Kite regards the jacket worn by Gordon Brown on his holiday as the final straw.

When I saw it, I was struck by a different thought. It's the clifftop shot:

During the 1968 campaign, Nixon's advisers told him he should try to emulate Kennedy's style. Kennedy, during his time in office, had been photographed on a Cape Cod beach with rolled-up pants and bare feet, holding hands with his children.

Nixon tried to stage a similar photo shoot at San Clemente, Calif.

"Nixon was photographed trying to be Kennedy, except -- it's absolutely classic -- he couldn't take off his shoes and couldn't roll up his pants," [Politics Professor Edmund] Beard said. "So he was walking on the beach in black wing-tip shoes."*

In fact, the more I think about it - isn't Gordon Brown's resemblence to Richard Nixon striking?

The rages, the awkwardness, the resentment of Blair/the Kennedys, the intense periods of hard work until late in the night, the clumsy attempts at populism, the misplaced smile, the unbelievable partisan fervour, even the jowls.

I am not, by the way, remotely suggesting that Brown is, or ever could be, a crook. But even his painful austere honesty has a bit of Nixon in it.

The Times