Ming: "Government has shot itself in the foot"

16:30 Ming has made it very early onto BBC News 24 to react to Gordon Brown's "no election" decision. He adroitly pointed out that the LibDems are actually doing very well in real elections - by-elections.

Andrew Marr has just gone into 10 Downing Street to interview the PM.

It's been clear all along that the depth of Brown's calculating political cunning would eventually come out into the open. Brown's Iraq non-announcement and now this charade are milestones in the journey of the British public discovering the real Gordon Brown.