First Whelan, now Shrum

Gordon Brown really is in trouble, if the latest of the Telegraph's list of Brown's biggest influences: 40-31 - Telegraph is anything to go by. Yesterday we had perennial under-achiever Charlie Whelan; today we have perennial under-achiever Bob Shrum:

A US political consultant, Shrum has worked on eight presidential election campaigns, none of them victorious. Nonetheless, Brown, a close student of US politics, listens to the veteran Shrum’s advice. Sometimes too closely: the Prime Minister was enraged in September when it was suggested that key passages from his speech to the Labour Party conference were copied from Shrum-written speeches by Al Gore.

So, if we read this right, Shrum gave Brown elements of a speech he knew he'd already given to Gore. Genius.