Gordon Brown - More faces than Big Ben's clock tower. (Troop withdrawal from Iraq)

Speaking from Iraq today, Gordon Brown said: "It is certainly our intention that we reduce troop numbers, but I am not going to give an artificial timetable at the moment."

Since when did it become Brown's policy not to give an artificial timetable?

In 2007 at a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Brown said: ''By Christmas, 1,000 of our troops can be brought back to the U.K. They have acted with great courage and bravery.'' As we learned shortly afterwards, Brown's statement was about as artificial as it gets.

I think Liam Fox described the situation quite well:

"Does this man have no shame? Once you read the small print you realise we are back to the same old spin. Five hundred of these troops have already been announced and 270 are back in the UK. "This is a cynical exploitation of our Armed Forces by a prime minister who puts the Labour Party's interests before the national interest."

As Iain Dale points out, Brown doesn't want to give an artificial timetable because: "there's not an election in the offing now, is there?"