Gordon Brown will work from his home in Scotland this week as he contemplates the possible timing of the next General Election, and the electoral fortunes of the Labour Party north of the border.
The Prime Minister, who along with his wife and children, abandoned their holiday in Dorset earlier this month after only four hours to respond to the foot-and-mouth crisis from Downing Street, appears to have given up all thoughts of another holiday and now has his feet firmly under the desk.
Mr Brown, riding high in the polls and facing pressure from sections of the party to call a snap election in the autumn, has given no hint of his plans - but sources close to him suggest he is more likely to wait at least until next May or June.
He returned to his North Queensferry home last week for the first time since succeeding Tony Blair as Prime Minister, and yesterday a Downing Street spokeswoman said he would be there for the "foreseeable future".
As he demonstrated during the foot-and-mouth scare, the Prime Minister will return to London immediately if he thinks it appropriate - but otherwise, he believes that the work of governing the country can continue from wherever he chooses to be.
Downing Street staff have joined him in Scotland, and the necessary prime ministerial accoutrements have been put in place for him to work between his home and office in his Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency.
Mr Brown, already concerned about Labour's fortunes in Scotland, will examine Alex Salmond's plans, published today, for a national conversation on the powers of the Scottish Parliament.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article