Tories will only experience a hollow victory

GORDON Brown is a deeply flawed figure lost in a Shakespearean tragedy of his own making.

As the hours tick down to his electoral demise, he finds himself leader of a country he is unable to communicate with and a country that has long since stopped listening to him.

It should never have come to this. The mantle of a glorious fourth term was his for the taking in 2007 after finally forcing Tony Blair from the helm of the Labour Party they had both fashioned in their own image.