Kenny Farquharson: Get on your soapbox and fight, Mr Brown

We might even get a rare glimpse of the formidable campaigner of old

THESE days I have to be careful what I say about Fifers. I once argued in print that Scotland would be a better place without the ancient Kingdom that lies between the Forth and the Tay. Helpfully, I suggested we dig a huge trench along the route of the M90 between the Forth Road Bridge and Perth, and then float Fife out into the middle of the North Sea. My argument was that we'd lose a couple of golf courses and that excellent chippy in Anstruther, but, overall, Scotland would be a far more satisfactory nation.

Inexplicably, people took offence. I was denounced in an editorial in the Raith Rovers matchday programme. Friends who'd foolishly chosen to make their homes in Dalgety Bay, Tayport and Charlestown (ignoring my warnings that their children would be raised as (shudder] Fifers) complained. At a party, a man who worked in economic development in Fife had to be restrained from laying the heid on me (illustrating my point rather well, I thought).

I may, I admit, have a Fife problem. But it's as nothing compared to Gordon Brown's. The corner of Scotland that begat the Prime Minister is currently his biggest headache. The death of his close friend John McDougall, Labour MP for Glenrothes, is both a personal loss and a political nightmare. Every single aspect of the Westminster by-election that will follow is a problem for the PM.

Effectively, this is already an SNP seat. If you look at how people in the Glenrothes constituency voted during the Holyrood elections last year, the Nationalists are ahead of Labour by about 800 votes. And the popularity of Brown and his Government hasn't exactly improved in the intervening 15 months. Labour is the underdog in its own seat.

So how should Brown respond? Keep his head down and try to ride out a defeat that seems inevitable? This weekend there will be plenty of people around him urging this cautious course, telling him to stick to the convention that the Prime Minister does not campaign in by-elections. (This 'convention', of course, is a myth. Tony Blair campaigned in by-elections in Uxbridge in 1997 and Eddisbury in 1999.) If he follows their advice, this contest will go down as yet another fight that Gordon Brown ducked. Is he a leader or isn't he? At the Glasgow East by-election last month it looked for a long time as if the Nationalists were going to be on the losing side. Alex Salmond's response was to ratchet up his campaigning efforts, leading from the front. The contrast between the two men's mindsets is a telling one.

There's also the simple matter of geography. The Glenrothes seat is well and truly in Brown's back yard. The constituency, created in the run-up to the 2005 general election, actually includes areas that used to be in Brown's old seat of Dunfermline East. Can Brown credibly keep out of this one? The last time he was faced with this dilemma, during the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election in 2006, his home was in the constituency, but still he declined to campaign. Labour – in a result that foretold the party's troubles today – lost to the Lib Dems. How does it look to the rest of the country if Labour is fighting for survival in Glenrothes and Brown is sitting at home a short drive away, watching the footie on TV?

Prime Ministerial aides will warn that taking to the streets is too risky. They'll argue that a Labour defeat would then be seen as a personal humiliation for the PM. They are missing the point. The contest is already a referendum on Brown's Premiership. A Labour defeat looks inevitable, but if Brown is out there fighting it will at least display some courage, belief and smeddum. We might even get a rare glimpse of the formidable campaigner of old.

What Downing Street fails to realise is that the public antipathy towards Brown has little to do with the policies of his Government. Rather, it's a consequence of Brown's inability to connect with the people of Britain and win their trust. This may well be an insurmountable problem – antipathy to Brown now runs deep. But people's opinions certainly won't change if Brown is kept locked in his lair, pacing the floor, while other people try to defend his reputation. Salmond made Glasgow East a choice between the Labour Government at Westminster and the SNP Government at Holyrood; between the Prime Minister or the First Minister. Does Brown have the bottle to make the Glenrothes contest a similarly personal tussle? Is he confident enough to make it a contest about himself? Or have we reached the remarkable point where Gordon Brown dare not risk the verdict of his fellow Fifers?

There's a precedent worth examining here. In the run-up to the 1992 general election the Tories' grip on power was loosening, and the Prime Minister was regarded as weak and ineffectual. No one thought he was as good as his predecessor in Number 10. John Major's response was to put aside the trappings of power, get out his soapbox and megaphone and go on a tour of the high streets of Britain, taking on hecklers and pressing the flesh. Major turned the tide, won people's respect and ultimately won the election.

Is our current Prime Minister capable of doing the same thing? Glenrothes would be a good place to begin to find out.