It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Gordon Brown setting out a plan to overhaul MPs’ unpopular allowances and announcing it on YouTube too.

A week later the plan has unravelled in the face of opposition protest and internal Labour party misgivings. The upshot is more bad press and the feeling that Brown’s authority has been further undermined.

Throw in a budget in which the government has been forced to admit to the worst economic performance since World War Two and it has been a few days to forget for Brown.

Commentators are increasingly writing about the Conservatives as a government-in-waiting, a focus that carries risks because it exposes their policies plans to closer scrutiny.

His visit to Pakistan on Monday also brought reports of a snub after he appeared at a press conference with  Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani rather than President Asif Ali Zardari.  

So is the game up for Gordon? Well, it certainly is hard to see how Labour can overhaul their deficit in the polls. But Brown was being written off in 2008, with rumours of his impending removal, but  emerged stronger when the credit crisis hit.

It’s been a bad week for Brown, but a year in politics is an eternity.