As if Gordon Brown did not have enough problems. Alongside a series of embarrassing policy retreats, a flagging economy and a battering at the hands of voters in recent local elections, the UK prime minister has now had to cope with the fallout from a series of political memoirs that have reached the shops in recent days.

Ranging from the autobiography of Cherie Blair, the wife of Mr Brown's predecessor Tony Blair, to the memoirs of John Prescott, former deputy prime minister, and Lord Levy, Labour's former fundraiser and an official envoy to the Middle East, the books are unwelcome reading for the current occupant of 10 Downing Street.