Do we have a prime minister with the policies of John Kerry/Al Gore and the paranoia of Richard Nixon? The question arises from the company that Gordon Brown is keeping and his office’s extreme response to a mildly embarrassing report carried yesterday in this newspaper. This week Mr Brown delivered one of the most important speeches of his career and chose to project his personal journey as the source of his moral rectitude and social compassion. That this supposedly unspun personal journey was, in part, crafted by one of America's legendary soft-left spinmeisters and that some of his phrases were recycled from the prosaic speeches of Mr Gore, Mr Kerry and Bill Clinton was surprising. That Mr Brown’s minions, having been caught out, should try to smear The Times and its journalists was even more surprisisng and far from the behaviour of the statesman that he clearly aspires to be.

It is worth highlighting again the striking similarity of phrases used by Mr Brown and those written by Bob Shrum for his erstwhile American clients. Perhaps we are all witnesses to a series of extraordinary coincidences, perhaps not. “People say I am too serious,” said our Prime Minister, whereas Mr Gore merely noted that “people say I'm too serious”; Mr Brown said: “I will not let you down”, while Mr Gore insisted that “I will never let you down”; and Mr Brown noted that “this is the century where our country cannot afford to waste the talents of anyone”, while another Shrum client, Mr Clinton, asserted that “as we move into this next century . . . we don’t have a person to waste”. That Mr Shrum should be trying to spin a line that Mr Brown is completely unspun is somewhat disconcerting, but there is nothing inherently wrong about transatlantic political pollination.

Much of David Cameron’s language about wanting to create a “moderate, compassionate conservatism” is a straight lift from George W. Bush’s first bid for the White House (and allowing for the present poll ratings in the US, never mind in Britain, the Tory leader’s failure to attribute these words accurately is understandable). Nor does the Prime Minister’s engagement of a spin-doctor necessarily undermine his claim to be a more substantial figure than his rival. The right response to this report would be to assert that the repetition of these sentences was accidental, coincidental or subconscious (if that were the case) while privately resolving to be more careful when choosing lines to describe what are supposed to be intimate, reflective remarks about “Brown, the man”.

Mr Brown instead chose to perceive this story in conspiritorial terms and react in an authoritarian manner. This has left the impression that while he is keen to construct a “Big Tent” (in the spirit of rigorous attribution, originally a US term), incorporating institutions and people ranging from the BBC to Conservative newspapers, he will crack down hard on anybody who has the temerity to wander out from below his vast and cosy canvas.

There is also a legitimate political question that springs from the Prime Minister’s association with Mr Shrum and admiration for some of his former clients, most of whom ran unsuccessful campaigns. Whereas Tony Blair was interested in how Democratic politicians fought elections, he did not see today’s Democratic Party as a role model for new Labour. His successor, by contrast, seems to see it as a kindred spirit.

Mr Brown would be wise to revisit that opinion. The Democrats achieved much of note under Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. It is perfectly reasonable for the Prime Minister to salute that tradition. But for most of the past few decades, the Democrats have been in a state of intellectual disarray and have not won 51 per cent of the vote in a presidential ballot since 1964. They are a party which lauds economic growth but can be ambivalent about the means by which wealth is created. It is a party in which trade unions that represent a diminishing percentage of the US workforce exercise undue influence. Its response to most problems at home is to spend more money. Its instinct abroad is often to flirt with isolationism and protectionism. It is, in short, old – and not new – Labour.

Yet the character of the Labour Party conference has raised the possibility that Mr Brown is significantly more left-wing and palpably more intolerant than he has hitherto revealed. For now, we wish him well and presume that he has suffered a temporary lapse in judgment. To rephrase that great American speechwriter Bob Shrum, don’t let the dream die, Mr Brown.