The final cut?
He said it. Finally, he uttered the word "cut".
In truth, though, , issued at the TUC, was carefully finessed.
Labour, he said, would "cut costs, cut inefficiencies, cut unnecessary budgets".
Scarcely a dramatic new direction there. Isn't that what responsible government should be doing all the time?
There was more, though. Labour would also cut "lower priority budgets". One can see the potential for dischord where different people have different priorities.
His union audience liked the promise to protect "vital front line services". They will have noted the challenge implicit in his determination to secure "realistic public sector pay settlements".
So, finesse. Far from aligning himself with a broader cross-party movement to endorse the necessity for cuts in public sector spending, the prime minister was out to depict contemporary UK politics as offering a choice.
Underlying objective
A choice, he argued, between intervention in the economy from Labour as against what he characterised as potential neglect by the Conservatives.
The Tories, of course, would not depict the choice in these terms. It is important, though, to understand the PM's underlying objective.
Labour strategists calculate that, if the next UK election amounts to a referendum on the immediate past, a period of economic decline, then Gordon Brown has had it.
If, however, they can contrive to get the voters to think about the election as a choice between two futures, rather than a verdict on recent history, then Labour may have a chance.
For Scotland, today's speech at the TUC should have a direct and immediate impact, particularly with on Thursday.
For consistency, Labour in Scotland might now be expected to shelve its attempt to argue that the resources available to the Scottish Government for the period ahead are anything other than relatively tight.
If Gordon Brown is telling, as he put it, the "tough truth about hard choices" on the economy and spending, then surely that is also the case with regard to the Scottish Budget which presently is a subset of the wider UK fund.
It would seem logical, at least, that the debate which will follow Thursday's publication might focus upon the best use of relatively constrained resources - not on whether such constraint exists.
I'm 
Comments
or to comment.