There's one great advantage Labour has in this election: experience. Campaign experience, that is. Gordon Brown has been a tireless political bruiser for more than 30 years. Peter Mandelson is known as the "Prince of Darkness" for a reason, while Charlie Whelan, Brown's bovver-boy in the union movement, is a shameless propagandist only at home in the darker recesses of the political game. The Tories, by contrast, are young and inexperienced at this level.

So it's not a great surprise that Labour will play for keeps. Consider this passage from a speech Brown gave on crime today:]]>