Westminster blog

I’ve just come away from Brown’s grilling by Jeremy Paxman on Panorama, which will be broadcast later tonight.

It was fascinating on several levels – and comes ahead of what is rumoured to be a nasty opinion poll for Labour later tonight.

Here are some interesting points to take away:

Brown would cut back spending on roads in the next Parliament. There could also be cuts to the housing budget. “We will be moving from road to rail so we won’t see the same level of expenditure on roads.” “Housing, it is essentially private sector activity.”

He isn’t an insomniac, honest. “I sleep through the night. I have studied history and there is not a prime minister or leader of the Labour party that hasn’t had real difficulties and real problems to deal with.” Brown is known to keep incredibly late hours and awake very early.

He claims he misunderstood what Gillian Duffy said: “I thought she was talking about expelling all university students from this country who are foreigners.” This is preposterous and bears no relation to what the widow actually said.

We only got the Olympics because we are a multicultural society. “Diversity we benefit from, it is one reason we won the Olympics, a lot of people saw Britain as one of the great diverse countries of the world.”

VAT won’t go up. Asked by Paxman if it is an option, he said: “It is a no. Because it is not in our deficit reduction plan. It is a Tory tax.”

On coalitions. “You’re not going to get me to talk about what happens after the election.”

Why people don’t seem to warm to Brown. “That’s for people to make up their own minds.”