Brown in appeal to voters as poll shows Labour is closing.

It really is open season on Gordon Brown when he finds himself having to deny that he once assaulted a senior aide while rushing to a Downing Street reception.

He says that he finds himself dealing with a "hostile" media. The man has a gift for understatement.

Three allegations of physical violence on members of staff appear in a new book about the Brown regime by the political commentator Andrew Rawnsley. It is serialised in The Observer today.

"It is simply a lie to say that I've ever hit anybody in my life," Mr Brown said. "I may have done one or two good tackles at rugby, but the idea that is suggested in this so-called inside account is just ludicrous."

The problem of getting his message across at a time when he faced damaging claims that he had behaved violently towards junior staff during a "reign of terror" in Downing Street lay behind Mr Brown's decision to agree to his controversial televised interview with Piers Morgan last week.

"What I say to the public has been mediated by newspapers that are very hostile to me," Mr Brown told the IoS. "It's important that people form their own impression, rather than have an impression imposed upon them by other people."

Some parts of the UK press have decided that it's time for Brown to go and every single thing which has gone wrong in the world, including the financial crisis brought about by the sub prime mortgage market in the United States, has been labelled as being, somehow, his fault.

Of course, this has partly been brought about because David Cameron and and his associates are constantly claiming that Brown caused the financial crisis and a hostile press are very happy to repeat such nonsense.

I expect we will get more of this tripe as the election approaches as Cameron is bound to be in a blind panic as he witnesses public support moving away from him rather than towards him as people start to question just what it is that Cameron intends to do once he takes office.

Up until now Cameron has benefited in the polls simply because he was not Gordon Brown, but, as the election approaches, Cameron's tactic of wanting to be all things to all people is beginning to come under scrutiny.

A new poll shows Labour have cut the Tories lead to just six points, the smallest gap between Labour and the Tories since December 2008.

A YouGov survey for The Sunday Times showed Labour jumping two points since last month to 33 per cent and the Conservatives falling to 39 per cent. The share would deny the Tories an overall majority at the general election.

And it appears that these latest slurs have brought Brown out of his shell to battle to remain in Number Ten.

The Prime Minister used his interview with the IoS to set the scene for the campaign, attempting to establish "clear red water" between the Government and the Opposition across a wide range of policy areas. In an attack of unusual ferocity, he claimed that Mr Cameron was leading a party that was right-wing, "unreconstructed" and "would destroy opportunities for millions of people to get middle-class jobs and incomes".

Mr Brown said: "The Conservatives have done all the public relations part of ... trying to persuade people they've changed. They've got the posters, they've got the slick advertising, they've got the big budgets for slogans which suggest they're different. But, in practice, when you actually look at the policies, there's not much evidence that they've changed."

I think Brown is bang on the money, as I was making that very point yesterday. There is no proof at all that the Tories have changed.

Perhaps the public are also coming to that conclusion, which is why Cameron's party are starting to slip in the polls.

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Tags: Brown, Cameron, Labour, Tories, UK politics