Having waited so long for the job he believed naturally his, some wonder if Brown will gamble all on going to the country after just three months in Number 10, writes Frank Millar.
Might next week in Bournemouth see the British Labour Party's last party conference before an early general election? Seeking to rally his own party in Brighton this week with the assurance that he's not too old to lead, Sir Menzies "Ming" Campbell put his Liberal Democrat troops on alert for a possible October poll.
Gordon Brown could conceivably bring the season to a dramatic halt on Monday by declaring his intentions during his very first speech to conference as Labour leader and prime minister. Others speculate he might be minded, rather, to sink the Tories in Blackpool just as they assemble for their annual gathering a week later.
You might have thought the British public and politicians alike would have more pressing concerns, not least given that the present parliament can actually run until 2010. It was only at the beginning of this week that queues of worried investors intent on rescuing their savings from the Northern Rock bank invoked memories of the Great Depression. And while ministers currently seem to have escaped any blame for the crisis, the fallout continues after the run on the bank, with many experts insistent that one Gordon Brown's regulatory reforms as chancellor were a major factor.
The speed with which the Bank of England reversed its worries about "moral hazard" and pumped £10 billion into the troubled banking system certainly raised suspicions about political interference and questions about Brown's claim to have made the Bank of England truly independent.
A shiver, likewise, will have run down Brown's spine on Wednesday when news broke that the authorities were investigating a suspected case of foot-and-mouth disease, this time in the Midlands. That same day's ICM poll might have put Labour's support at the magical 40 per cent mark, but here was a reminder if needed about "events" and their potential to disrupt even the best-laid political plans.
Yet talk about an early election persists, fuelled by this week's "political cabinet" meeting, Labour's private polling and the apparently growing belief of some senior ministers that the new prime minister might never have a better opportunity to win the personal mandate he obviously craves.
It might, of course, all prove to be nonsense, no more than an elaborate tease to keep the Tories on tenterhooks. It is widely held, after all, that the electorate inclines to punish parties that subject them to unnecessary elections. Moreover, Brown is (or, at least, has been) famously risk-averse. Having waited so long for the job he believed naturally his, would he really gamble on varying opinion poll leads after just three months in Number 10? The polls are certainly encouraging - ICM's latest would see Brown win a fourth term for Labour with an increased majority, while Conservative leader David Cameron is seemingly less popular now than the troubled Ming.
Yet while Cameron declares himself and his party ready for a contest any time Brown chooses, the Tory leader would doubtless respond by accusing the prime minister of cutting and running in anticipation of tough times ahead for the British economy. Just this week Alan Greenspan, former head of the US Federal Reserve, was warning of an upcoming painful correction in the UK housing market.
The next day heard Cambridgeshire chief constable Julie Spence say police need more resources to deal with the particular problems caused by the influx of east European immigrants. At the same time, the Commission for Racial Equality used its final report to voice concern about a society increasingly fractured along ethnic lines: "The pace of change in Britain over the last few years has unsettled many and caused people to retreat into and reinforce narrower ethnic and religious ties."
Cameron appeared to reduce the "Brown bounce" during the summer when he turned his attention to fears of increasing violent crime on the streets. And while Brown's response to the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow won him credit, a political battle lies ahead over his determination to extend the time police can hold terror suspects without trial, inevitably reviving concerns about Labour's authoritarian instinct.
Nor has "the war" actually gone away, despite the expectation that British troops will be returning soon from Iraq under cover of claimed "success" in Basra. Brown carried off a successful first encounter with US president George Bush while sending conflicting signals about the state of the "special relationship" and the future direction of British foreign policy. Even without this week's intervention by Gen David Petraeus in London, however, many who supported the war - bank-rolled as it was by then chancellor Brown - cannot comprehend how the relatively small number of British troops now in Iraq can have no further part to play while 100,000 American troops will probably still be in the country when the next president assumes office.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith this week observed that the British are still America's most capable ally in Iraq and that precipitate withdrawal would send "all the wrong signals" to the insurgents and Iran. He argued the UK should instead quit Afghanistan, having, as he put it, sleepwalked into a fierce military engagement in Helmand province blind to the strategic consequences of doing so. "IDS" also recalled the hope expressed by the then defence secretary that the British mission in Afghanistan might be accomplished without a shot fired in anger, while reflecting widespread anxiety that the Labour government has overstretched and under-resourced its armed forces.
All this, you might think, would find expression in a coherent Conservative critique of a high-spending, stealth-taxing government already in power for 10 years, during which time the dominant force in domestic policy terms was the very man now representing himself as the "change" Britain wants and needs. Yet here we are - broken promise on a European referendum notwithstanding - on the eve of a Labour conference with Brown apparently seriously considering an autumn or spring poll, buoyed by ICM's finding that Labour has recovered its lead on all the major policy issues, including Europe.
Some seasoned observers across the spectrum, from Lord [Paddy] Ashdown to Michael Portillo are convinced the natural caution of the Son of the Manse will prevail, and suggest May 2009 (the four-year mark favoured by Brown's new friend Margaret Thatcher) as the likeliest date. And it is safe to say Brown does not plan to play James Callaghan to Harold Wilson, inheriting the crown only to prove a fag-end prime minister and a footnote in the history books. Yet former Liberal Democrats leader Charles Kennedy says if he were Gordon he would go for it now.
Maybe he will. Maybe, in a fortnight's time, we will have discovered that he never intended to. But that it is being discussed at all is proof of the transformed state of British politics. "Not flash, just Gordon" is the slogan created to reassure British voters that everything they came to hate about New Labour has gone along with Tony Blair. And it seems to be working. Blair may have ruled in presidential style for 10 years. Yet, suddenly, it's as if he was never there - and David Cameron faces a bigger challenge than he ever imagined.