Will the real Gordon Brown please stand up? I cannot be the only person in the country a little confused by our new Prime Minister. Does he, for instance, like America or not? I know he goes on holiday there, on the East Coast (not this year, but usually), I know he likes Alan Greenspan, and free markets, and “enterprise”, and I know that last week he suddenly, quietly, before slipping off for the holidays, announced that the US would be allowed to base part of its new missile defence system at Menwith Hill on the Yorkshire moors.

Not even Tony Blair had dared to take the decision on Menwith Hill and now Mr Brown has done it, just like that, without consultation, with no debate in Parliament, and slipped out just before the summer recess in the hope that everybody will have forgotten about it by the autumn. It wasn’t even necessary; the US has not got beyond the preparatory phase of the European missile defence programme, and the day after the government announcement, Congress cut the funding that George W. Bush needs to deliver the key component of it, the actual missiles, in Poland. In other words, the Prime Minister tied himself to an uncertain, futuristic, politically and strategically dubious pet project of President Bush – why? Was it really to offer a sweetie before flying out for their first meeting?

It would seem so, and yet the Prime Minister then spent the day doing his damndest to look like he wasn’t trying to look like Mr Bush’s friend after all. The President couldn’t have been more generous in his praise for Mr Brown; the Prime Minister could hardly have been less so. He read out a statement that could have been spoken in the House of Commons, or a No 10 press conference, or at a slightly boring think-tank event, as if the President of the United States was not even there. His refusal to flick a single compliment Mr Bush’s way made him look churlish, although it produced just the headlines Mr Brown will have wanted back home (though not in Yorkshire), about keeping his distance and all that. I say again: will the real Gordon Brown please stand up?

If he knows who he is. As Labour considers the possibility of holding an election this autumn, that is the question it has to answer. If Mr Brown’s intentions towards the United States are fuzzy, his domestic objectives are utterly opaque. End child poverty, yes. Stable economy. Children’s centres. What else?

There was a telling moment at the American press conference when Mr Brown tried to outline the “new challenges” in 2007. They are not the same, he said, as the ones we faced in 1997. Economic stability, employment, public services, have given way to international terrorism, climate change, Darfur and the Middle East. “The challenges are different. We will deal with them by being a government of opportunity and security for all, but the challenges of course are new . . .” Which by my reckoning is an old chestnut, “opportunity and security for all”, wrapped in a lot of twaddle. Bog standard domestic politics is still the challenge: schools, crime, hospitals – those things that Mr Brown described as his “passion” and his “priority”. They are what wins elections. Look at the Ipsos MORI tracking poll on the most important issues facing Britain today. It has gone out of fashion with pollsters, that question, but MORI still asks it and the top four are race and immigration followed by the NHS, then crime, and then defence/international terror/foreign affairs. In ten years immigration and terror have replaced the EU and unemployment; but schools, hospitals and crime have remained in the top four pretty much throughout. Mr Brown’s list of “new challenges” was a death wish of foreign adventures. Here is how to lose an election from a winning position.

What does Mr Brown propose to do about the electorate’s domestic priorities? Until he can answer this question there can be no election in the autumn. Would a Brown manifesto, for instance, halt the hospital closure programme, or promise to complete it? If the latter, where are the new super-A&Es to which patients are to be funnelled? Does he plan to try to renegotiate the GP contract, or open more nurse and foreign doctor-manned walk-in centres to provide out-of-hours care? After the 400 academies, what next? And will they still be truly independent once local education authorities are given power to approve their establishment, as well as up to half the seats on the board? Does this mean he no longer believes in the comprehensive education system? Variable funding so that poorer kids get more money? New PFIs? School closures? Parental choice? Patient choice? I could pretty much tell you how Mr Blair would have answered all those; I have no idea about Mr Brown.

David Cameron is having a wobble, but it may not last. Voters in the South whose support Labour needs in order to win are uncertain about the Tory leader, but they still kind of like him. Or at least they feel they could like him if he would only come up with some more policies. They feel no connection with Mr Brown at all.

So it is possible, with a few more policy announcements from Mr Cameron, and another year or so, with some more credibility on the Tory front bench (he needs a new Shadow Chancellor, for a start), it is possible that today’s polls could prove to have been a high point for Labour. The media narrative is in the Prime Minister’s favour at the moment; it is against Mr Cameron. Petty enemies of the Tory leader are being hyped as big problems, while Mr Brown’s many inconsistencies are being ignored. This may last another few months at best. Which is why, if nothing much changes over the summer, Mr Brown should call an election in the autumn. If he has a manifesto. If he knows what it is he wants to do. If, if, if . . .

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