Gordon Brown is back in town

I hear Gordon Brown is in town, which means school children in his Kirkcaldy constituency can be sure he’s not going to burst in on their lessons today for a photo opportunity.

MPs can be confident he won’t be bursting into the Commons chamber too. There are no plans to speak there yet. But he is in and out of his Commons office, meeting former cabinet colleagues. He’s also nipping out to meet Senator Ted Kennedy’s widow Vicki who is visiting London.

Another meeting is with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, godfather of the worldwide web. Sir Tim has been talking about how the internet can help developing countries and Gordon Brown is keen to learn more.

As well as keeping up with the World Cup the former Prime Minister has been swimming – I presume not in the Firth of Forth. He’s also been writing furiously, but it’s a little more theoretical than gossipy.

A very different book, Peter Mandelson’s memoirs, is sitting in the Cabinet Office awaiting clearance for a pre-summer holiday launch, the author hopes. I’m told that Lord Mandelson had tapped out quite a chunk of the book before re-joining British politics during his Brussels exile, which makes you wonder about the spirit in which it was written.