Simon Heffer has convinced himself that Gordon is a "closet Tory"

Simon Heffer writing in the Telegraph, appears to have convinced himself that Gordon Brown is a "closet Tory". (Hat tip: UK Daily Pundit).

This is quite a turnaround from the recent past when Tories like Heffer believed that Brown was to the left of Blair and in the pocket of the unions. After dwelling lovingly on what he believes to be Brown's "euro-scepticism" and his friendship with Alan Greenspan, Heffer writes:

I have always wondered: is Mr Brown, who appears to be our next Prime Minister, perhaps a bit of a closet Tory?

.........Mr Brown wants nothing more than to be Prime Minister, and to be in that office for a long time.

He can only do that by trouncing the Tories in the next election. And if that in turn is going to depend on his pretending to be more Thatcherite than they are, then I fear we should consider it done.

........Dave won't believe any of this will happen. But he wouldn't believe Mr Brown would "cut" taxes - until, that is, he did.

Keep it up Simon. We want more articles like this in the next few years. The more old-style, Telegraph-reading Tories you can convince of this thesis the better - we then look forward to this group abstaining at the next election in the belief that they are better off with Uncle Gord than with Bullingdon Boy.