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Mr Woodward has been tipped to take over as Defence Secretary — one of the plum Cabinet jobs. It is a proposed move that has caused dismay and resentment in some sections of the Labour Party, since Mr Woodward has been in their ranks for less than a decade. He defected from the Tories as an MP in 1999 and was given a safe Labour seat two years later. And the current Defence Secretary, former NIO Minister Des Browne, is being weighed up for a return to Belfast as the head of the new department.

The Prime Minister - described by the Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman as the man who "saved the world financial system" - is on comfortable territory here: "I think my credentials . . . are very strong."Krugman, however, has also criticised Brown, who he says "bought fully into the dogma that the market knows best, that less regulation is more". Does the Prime Minister regret his earlier neoliberal zeal for deregulation? As Chancellor, he gave numerous speeches to banking audiences in which he extolled the virtues of "light touch" and "limited touch" regulation in the City. Despite conceding that he has "learned lessons from what has happened in the global financial crisis", he seems largely unrepentant. "We had a dynamic financial sector and we still have a dynamic financial sector," he says, adding gruffly: "We're not anti-business."

Brown instantly and almost robotically begins listing the government's record on having "taken people out of poverty", before we interrupt: yes, but what about the gap between rich and poor? "The problem we've got is that we're dealing with a global economy," he says, irritated, refusing to engage directly with the issue. His commitment to helping the poorest in society is not in question; but his willingness to do something about the soaring excess at the top of the payscale is.