Gor-Don Quixote-Brown is at it again - this time its the Middle East

Not content with single handedly solving the global oil crisis the other week, our glorious leader has now turned his hand to sorting out the Middle East.

Despite being unable to rustle up any extra money to honour his promises to the police or to pay for proper equipment for our troops in Afghanistan, Labour have managed to dig around and find an extra $60 million to hand over to the Palestinian National Authority. This brings the total amount of UK taxpayers' money donated to the Palestinians to $175 million this year.

Without any trace of irony, the PM also proffered his advice on how the Palestinians could get access to "cheap mortgages" to kickstart their housing market. I'm sure Mahmoud Abbas is very grateful.

Brown has also laid down the law to Iran on its nuclear programme, giving them 2 weeks to suspend their enrichment programme or else. Or else what? With Russia increasingly saying "Nyet" to any request for action in the UN Security Council, it is very unclear whether the threat of tighter sanctions can be brought to bear by the West. Iran has shown absolutely no sign of stopping its enrichment and probably will continue to stall at least until the results of the US Presidential election are known. So Gordon Brown's threats are empty ones.

As a useful diversion from his domestic woes, these overseas trips are useful for Brown. But if he put half as much thought and energy into solving the UK's problems, he might just get somewhere.