Embattled Brown puts PMQs on YouTube

In a craven and no doubt doomed bid to connect with young people, Gordon Brown has announced that he will allow the digitally savvy to put questions to him on the video-sharing site YouTube. The Prime Minster, who called the new move an "exciting new initiative" (almost a parody of Tony Blair's call for advisors to come up with "eye-catching initiatives" focussed on himself back in 2000), will answer the most popular submitted questions.

Says Brown: "I am here to answer your questions. Politicians get the chance in Prime Minister's Questions. I think it is time the public had a chance."

The deadline for the first questions is June 21, to which Brown has promised to respond "at some point soon". It could prove more popular that Brown imagines - several thousand people signed up to the Downing Street sub-site within hours of it going live. But he should be wary. Given that Labour's popularity is at the lowest since Margaret Thatcher was in power, it seems unlikely the questions coming his way will all be soft balls.