'Billy Liar' Brown lucky to avoid mauling at the despatch box by sure-footed Cameron

The only crumb of comfort for Gordon Brown is that there is no Prime Minister's Questions this lunchtime.

Thanks to the absurdly long Commons recess, he cannot be interrogated at the despatch box about the Libyan fiasco until Wednesday 14 October, six weeks hence.

It is difficult to see how he would escape a mauling from David Cameron, who has sure-footedly stepped up pressure on the Prime Minister over the past fortnight.

The Tory leader's charge of "double-dealing" goes to the heart of what has emerged. Mr Brown, it appears, fell into the trap of giving different messages to different audiences.

He personally assured Col Gaddafi he would not interfere with any decision on the fate of bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

His minister Bill Rammell went further by telling the Libyans that the Prime Minister did not want Megrahi to die in jail.

The Americans were, meanwhile, under the impression that the man convicted of murdering 270 people would serve a full prison sentence.

And while Scottish ministers were properly left to take the decision, the published records reveal how they were left in no doubt that appeasing the oil-rich Libyans was a vital British national interest.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw spoke of the "overwhelming interests" at stake and welcomed talks on Megrahi while Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis encouraged the Libyan application for his freedom to be considered.

None of this proves or even implies that there was an underhand deal to exchange Megrahi for oil.

But it is consistent with the charge that the Government failed to be straightforward about what it was doing and why.

The Prime Minister, who once compared himself with Heathcliff, is starting to resemble another working-class literary figure, Billy Fisher, whose comic downfall came when his three fiancées found out what he had promised the others.

Extraordinarily, the devastating revelations last night were prompted by a campaign run by Labour MSPs to vilify the Scottish Nationalist Party for releasing Megrahi.

Scotland is supposed to be the Labour leader's own backyard, yet nobody had the sense or honesty to call off Labour's own attackers before they scored the mother of own goals.