IT TOOK six weeks of denial that a Budget could be re-written before the smell of burning rubber from the Government’s hand-brake turn on the 10p tax was wafting all the way from Westminster to Crewe. Gordon Brown proved he is capable of listening – the hard way.

The sweeping changes announced by Chancellor Alistair Darling are welcome for the broad effect of reversing most of the damage to those hit by the indefensible decision to go ahead with the abolition of the 10p rate. The additional effect of taking 600,000 low earners out of the taxation system is a progressive bonus. But by failing simply to reverse the abolition, the Government has left at least one million of those who were among the very poorest of the original losers-out worse off. Mr Darling must ensure this is rectified in the autumn. In the interests of social justice, the

U-turn was essential. Quite what the electoral effect will be in the longer term is difficult to fathom given that many voters will have decided that the damage was done in the first place in the conscious act of taking precious resources away from the worse off to give to the better-off.

The need to recant may pile the charge of incompetence on the original crime. The by-election in Crewe and Nantwich next week will provide an early barometer of the reaction to this and the raft of measures included in the draft Queen’s Speech to show that the Government is listening and prepared to act on those bread and butter issues, such as housing, health, education and financial security on which an increasing number have found it wanting.

There is a welcome progressive vein running through the proposals – on equality, constitutional change, savings and, to a limited degree, housing. But the overriding theme remains deeply rooted in the principles of “new” Labour and borrows much from previous Tory policies and continued genuflection to the market as a driver for social reform: on benefits and work, the extension of flexible working, on education and skills.

If it is true, as we are led to believe in Cherie Blair’s assertion that her husband refused to leave office earlier than he did because Mr Brown refused to carry on his policies, how is it that they are so viscerally embedded in his own now? Could it be that Mr Brown’s anguish and perceived dithering is due to a private, lonely intellectual tussle which is characterising and marring his leadership now?

The events of this week brought a temporary calm to the regicidal mood among MPs at Westminster. But the Blairites are still plotting, while the forthcoming by-election and the 42-day detention row risk making this week look long distant and return Mr Brown’s leadership to mutinous scrutiny. Mr Brown does not want to be the victim of what some MPs are already predicting is a “dead dog bounce” – a rather cruel metaphor based on the proposition that if you drop a dead dog from a great height it will give a little bounce. But it remains dead.

The prospects for Mr Brown’s leadership are discussed throughout this edition by regular contributors of differing views, including those, such as Joan Smith on page 13, who believe he should, one way or another, vacate the leadership. Tribune maintains the view that this is not necessary and would in no way guarantee any improvement in the Government’s electoral standing.

Comparisons have been drawn, in some cases malignly, between Mr Brown and the position John Major found himself in more than a decade ago. But there is a critical difference. Mr Major led a party riven by an ideological dispute over Europe which gave his entire party the aura of a mass suicide attempt. There is no similar public perception of Labour today. Notwithstanding what we say about the need for a change in policy direction, the overwhelming doubt in the public mind lies in Mr Brown’s leadership and whether he is up to the job. There is abundant evidence that he is. But that is increasingly being buried under a rash of cynical tactical stunts, political miscalculations and an all-too-visible disconnect with the interests of the public.

Gordon – and only Gordon – can find a way to untie the Gordion knot that is threatening to squeeze the life out of his leadership.