Mr Gordon Brown, Where Art Thou?

(To be sung to the theme of Scooby-Doo, ideally)

Taken from the Guardian, y'all:

Age: 59.

Appearance: The Invisible Man, sans bandages.

The grumpy one who used to be prime minister? More or less. He's the business-friendly son of the manse who helped make Labour electable after 18 years in the wilderness, blah blah. But grumpy? JK Rowling calls him "affable, funny and gregarious".

When I die, I want that woman to write my obituary. So what's Brown doing now? Pretending to care about the Middle East? That's the other unpopular former Labour premier. This one's still in parliament, on the backbenches for the first time since Margaret Thatcher was in power. Almost 65% of the voters of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath still love him.

Are you positive he isn't sorting out the Palestinian Question? He hasn't been on telly. He's been to the House of Commons twice since the election, once to take the oath of allegiance, and once to sit through two minutes of questions to the new environment secretary.

Isn't he right to keep his head down? If he doesn't, the other Labour MPs will only complain he's disrupting their leadership campaign. Whereas if he does, the Tories will complain he's neglecting his duties. On Monday, Cameron told the Commons he wished Brown "could be bothered to turn up to this House". If you're a politician, this is simply hilarious.

Whereas if you're not it's simply pathetic. So how has Brown been filling the hours? Watching every match in the World Cup, according to the cynics. "Working hard in his constituency," according to his wife.

And lovingly contemplating his leaving present? What did the rest of the cabinet give him? An overpriced print of Chequers, like Tony Blair got? Absolutely nothing so far. As one of them explained: "For a while we didn't know if he was going or not." And it is only seven weeks since Brown resigned.

Do say: "Just think of all the time you'll have to catch up with old friends."

Don't say: "That Gillian Duffy's at the door again."

Brown isn't the first to adopt this approach: John Major did something similar in 1997, staying on as an MP for four years but keeping himself "out of trouble"; and Edward Heath stayed on the backbenches for a good 26 years after being forced to step down as leader.

I did also think of Alec Douglas-Home, PM from 1963 until 1964 as a possible example, but Douglas-Home actually returned in 1970 as Foreign Secretary: proof that your Parliamentary career is not necessarily "over" if you get ousted from No. 10. Though it seems unlikely Brown will be taking a job in the Shadow Cabinet any time soon.

Incidentally, if you have a minute, the story about Douglas-Home potentially getting kidnapped as PM in '64 is fantastically British. "You realise if you kidnap me, the Conservatives will win by about 200 or 300?" Classic stuff.

The Evening Stanners