Oh dear. Just what Gordon Brown didn’t want to hear. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the new head of the IMF, suggesting that the world needs a big fiscal electric-shock to help it out of its looming economic downturn.

Mr Strauss-Kahn’s view that interest rate cuts alone won’t dig the global economy out of a hole marks a surprise shift in the IMF’s position - normally it is the biggest cheerleader for fiscal consolidation.

But it is awkward for governments like Gordon Brown’s where the room for manouevre in the fiscal area is virtually non-existent. Even in the boom years, Britain’s deficit was topping 2 per cent of GDP - this year it will be nudging up towards the EU’s 3 per cent borrowing limit.

So don’t expect Mr Brown or Alistair Darling, chancellor, to be following Mr Strauss-Kahn’s advice to loosen the pursestrings a bit. They couldn’t, even if they wanted to.

Why is Mr Strauss-Kahn’s intervention bad news politically for Mr Brown? Well, it plays straight into the hands of George Osborne, shadow chancellor, who has been telling anyone who would listen in Davos that Britain is uniquely badly placed to withstand a global downturn.

Britain, he argues, has the biggest deficit of any major European economy. Automatic stabilisers - namely higher government spending in a downturn - cannot be applied. Mr Strauss-Kahn’s advice, whether economically sensible or not, is certain to draw attention to precisely that point.

I recommend that Peter Hain reads the US papers today. Instead of dwelling on his political obituary, he can take heart from a (albeit incomplete) story of redemption: Paul Wolfowitz has made a return to government.

Rosie Winterton, a transport minister, was yesterday awarded the extra title of Minister for Yorkshire and the Humber - replacing Caroline Flint, the new housing minister.

Meanwhile Phil Hope became minister for the East Midlands.

The news served as a reminder that Gordon Brown introduced numerous regional posts when he set up his first cabinet last summer. Others include Ben Bradshaw for the South-west. Are these purely symbolic roles?

The big idea was that there would be a regular Regions Question Time on the Commons floor. This would give more of a voice to those-outside-London after the failure of plans for elected regional assemblies, whose potential genesis was met with apathy in 2004.

But no one seems to have heard anything on this since July.

Lord Levy, former fund-raiser for Labour under Tony Blair, showed a delicious sense of timing in announcing plans to publish his memoirs yesterday; just after Peter Hain resigned.

Simon & Schuster, the publisher, has won the auction to publish the memoir of the controversial former businessman who was at the heart of the "Cash for Peerages" probe by police into Labour donations. Levy was cleared after an investigation which saw Blair become the first prime minister to be questioned by police while in office.

The press release about the book just hours after Mr Hain stepped down after discovering that the police are looking into the way in which donations were made to his campaign to become deputy leader of Labour last summer. A co-incidence?

"It will provide the first insider’s account of political funding and the controversy over Cash for Peerages," said S&S. "His decision to tell his story in his own words will ruffle the feathers of many with good reason."

MPs pay was the dog which didn’t bark, let alone bite. A thinly-attended House of Commons last night capitulated to Gordon Brown’s wish for pay restraint and a 1.9 per cent pay rise was passed without even going to a vote.

It was always hard to see why anyone would have stepped out of line and fought for the 2.56 per cent recommended by the Senior Salaries Review Board.

 It’s one thing for police to demonstrate for marginally higher pay; they put their lives on the line for public safety. Members of Parliament are not held in quite the same regard.

Back in 1996 the chamber rejected the government’s 3 per cent pay offer and awarded its members a 26 per cent increase; from £34k to £43k a year. That’s the kind of money worth risking "snouts in the trough" headlines.

Who really thought that many MPs would go out on a limb for a measly 0.66 per cent extra?

Today’s volte-face on capital gains tax shows that the government is capable of listening to entrepreneurs and their spokesmen. But do ministers pay too much attention to business lobbyists?

That is the argument of Friends of the Earth, which - in July 2005 - made a freedom of information request for access to records of lobbying meetings between the CBI and DTI (now BERR) after the last general election.

The charity wants to see records of meetings between the then trade secretary and Digby Jones, who was CBI director-general at the time and is now trade minister.

After the DTI refused to hand over all the paperwork the Information Commission ordered the department to release it. But the government has now appealed to the Information Tribunal to overturn that decision. The hearing is next week.

“It has taken almost three years to get to the final stage of our freedom of information request, which is far too long,” says Phil Michaels, legal head at FoE.

The inquiry begins on January 31 and will last several days - with the results probably made public a month or two later. Vast numbers of freedom of information requests are turned down. But it is hard to see why BERR would not want details of meetings with the CBI made open.

It says: “We believe that in certain instances it is in the public interest to protect the ’thinking space’ necessary for good public policy formulation and to enable the Department to have a private discourse with external organisations.”

Separately, a coalition of civil society groups gave evidence at a parliamentary committee today and called for new rules to be brought in to shed more light on lobbyist activities.

Many lobbyists have signed up to a voluntary code through an organisation called Association of Professional Political Consultants. This code prevents them from having financial relationships with MPs and MEPs, for example.

But David Miller of the University of Strathclyde, a member of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency, argued that the current system of self-regulation was incapable of providing adequate transparency in lobbying.

“The public has a right to know on whose behalf lobbyists are working, how much money is involved, and the areas of policy they are seeking to influence,” said Professor Miller. “Specialist lobbying companies are adept at finding ingenious ways to disguise the role of their clients which is why genuine full disclosure is so important.”

The alliance - which includes Spinwatch, the National Union of Journalists, Friends of the Earth and Campaign Against Arms Trade - wants to see a mandatory public register of lobbyists with full financial disclosure.

It also wants to see an enforceable ethics rule for all lobbyists and new rules on what it calls the “revolving door” syndrome between the industry and public life.

Peter Hain’s resignation was inevitable once the police were called in to look into the shambolic financing of his doomed attempt to become Labour’s deputy leader. After coming fifth in the contest (who came sixth? Can’t remember), he must be wishing he hadn’t bothered.

But the big question at Westminster this afternoon is whether Gordon Brown will use this as a chance to beef up his cabinet, which many Labour MPs believe is lacking in heavyweights: people who can take the fight to the Tories.

One option would be to bring in a promising middle-ranking minister. Liam Byrne, the able immigration minister, would be an obvious choice but he is hardly a household name. Yvette Cooper, highly trusted by Mr Brown, could be promoted from housing.

The bolder choice would be to bring back in one of the big beasts of the Blair government. There a number of contenders biting their tongues on the backbenches, waiting to be brought back into the fold.

They include Charles Clarke, David Blunkett, Alan Milburn or Stephen Byers. Most have been loyally silent (apart from Mr Clarke, who lapsed but appears to have been forgiven). Mr Byers sued for peace over the Christmas period, saying that Tony Blair was "history".

But is Mr Brown ready to bring these arch-modernisers back into the cabinet, perhaps signalling a shift back towards a more Blairite "choice" agenda?

Normally one would expect the PM to make a speedy choice on Mr Hain’s replacement. We’ll probably find out this afternoon. But don’t rule out - as an outside bet - that Mr Brown’s reputation as a ditherer may apply to his first enforced cabinet reshuffle.

So it looks like MPs are going to step up this afternoon and vote themselves a below inflation pay rise — all for the good of the nation. It would be inspiring but for all the whining and grumbling. But who are the MPs blaming? The answer is both baffling and slightly disturbing.

In the tea rooms and bars, there is a growing sense of enmity towards the Senior Salaries Review Body. This is hard to explain. After all, the independent body did their bit and recommended an above inflation pay rise for MPs. But even this has failed to satisfy the honourable parliamentarians hankering for more pay.

One senior MP told me that there were was a "distinct lack of confidence" in the SSRB and its chair Sir John Baker. "There is a feeling", he whispered, "that they have allowed themselves to be got at by the government on this."

The theory goes like this: the SSRB submitted its first report to ministers months ago, and it looked very different from the third and final version published last week. "Progressively they have eroded what was in the first draft," the MP continued. "It is scandalous."

There is absolutely no evidence for this. But this has not stopped several MPs from believing it. Watch the vote to see just how many. David Maclean, the Tory MP who led the noble movement to exempt MPs from freedom of information laws, has put down an amendment proposing that the review body report to the House of Commons rather than the government.

Watching Gordon Brown in action today at PM’s questions, I couldn’t help thinking he was actually enjoying himself for the first time. The body language was more relaxed, the smile a little less robotic.

He seems to think this clever Goldman’s wheeze on saving the Northern Rock with a government-backed bond issue offers the government an escape route from the whole fiasco and could even end up with the taxpayer making a profit.

Better still, he is able to highlight the extraordinarily uncertain Tory response to Northern Rock. Of all the options available, Mr Brown is probably right to say that administration - the current option favoured by the Tories - is probably the worst.

But I think what really got those whitened teeth flashing was a good old fashioned row over the economy. When Ken Clarke, the former chancellor, laid into him, it was just like the good old days. Mr Brown was able to reel off the stats about the Tories presiding over 15 per cent interest rates, 3m unemployed etc etc.

This is home turf for Mr Brown. It is his comfort zone. David Laws, the Lib Dem MP and former Treasury watcher, summed it up when I bumped into him outside the chamber.

"It’s almost as if the economic downturn and stock market turmoil is what he wants," he said. "It’s where he seems to want the debate to be."

Whether the public will "cling to nurse" (alias the former Iron Chancellor) or blame him for their economic plight is perhaps the big unknowables of British politics in 2008.

The debate over the Anti-Terror Bill looks likely to be one of the biggest challenges to Gordon Brown since he became PM.

Countless legal experts have stepped up to criticise the increase in pre-charge detention from 28 days to 42.

Those expected to vote against the bill, published tomorrow, come from all political persuasions. Surprisingly, they even include some who previously backed Tony Blair’s failed attempt to introduce a far longer period of 90 days.

Fabian Hamilton, a Labour MP, is one of these. He has since listened to the arguments of numerous liberal voices and now believes the changes are “bizarre” and “random”.

His conversion is partly down to a visit to one of George W. Bush’s so-called “Axis of Evil” states.

“I have been to Iran since then, and to China, and it has persuaded me of the importance of preserving our liberties,” he says. “Iran is civilised with splendid people but a dreadful judicial system." Dissent within the Labour ranks is widespread, he says. "I have spoken to a lot of colleagues and many are deeply unhappy.”

One theory is that Brown is not as committed to 42 days as it appears and that the bill is a cunning plan to make the Tories look soft on terror.

David Davis, shadow home secretary, has made a strong liberal case for retaining the status quo - but in a newspaper last Sunday he acknowledged the issue had previously caused splits within his party. “This may cost us some votes.,” he said.