Is it going to help or hinder him in his quest for the top job?

Our chart shows the betting price on Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership over the past three days and reflects the very mixed feelings there are amongst punters.

For as can be seen there has been a tightening on the Brown price but he is still not quite as firm a favourite as he was on Monday before the Turnbull “Brown like Stalin” story broke.

The big danger in making such a big deal of a tax cut is the reaction when electors find it is not as good as it seems when they read the small print. It looks like a sleight of hand and that could be damaging.

This could reinforce the negative views of those who are sceptical anyway about Brown and might not provide the big poll boost that Labour is desperately looking for.

What is revealing is that the new BrandIndex betting market from IG Index on politicians popularity has not seen the move to Brown that you would have expected. The spread of 68.7-69.2 was fixed eight minutes after the chancellor sat down and has not moved since.

This is a weekly betting market on how leading politicians are rated according to YouGov’s daily BrandIndex surveys.

My reaction yesterday afternoon was to “SELL” Brown on the BrandIndex market because of the less than fulsome way that the TV bulletins were treating the tax announcement. This is reflected in today’s newspapers. After winning a tidy sum on a spread bet on the length of the budget speech I’m hoping that my luck will continue.

Mike Smithson