Only a fortnight ago I wrote that "a General Election in 2009 is out of the question. The real question this year may be whether Gordon Brown can survive beyond the Labour conference in October."

Already I'm beginning to change my mind.

Not about the second part of that comment, but the first.

There is no doubt that the Government is in a real mess, and it's not about the "issues" as Tony Benn called them.

I don't think the Government's real problems are with its handling of the economic situation, though I do agree with Vince Cable that the budget is a real missed opportunity.

I've not always been ecstatic about Liberal Democrat taxation policy in recent years, but I do think Vince and his team have now got it right.

There's a real opportunity to give more spending and saving power to people on ordinary incomes by rejigging the income tax system.

It would help to stimulate the economy. It would help narrow the gap between most people and those at the top, which under New Labour has widened alarmingly and disgracefully.

As it is, most of the extra money the Government has had "printed" has ended up in the coffers of the banks, and too little seems to be seeping out.

Nor do I fault the Government's handling of the swine flu outbreak.

They appear to be assessing the risk in a sensible way, taking proportionate actions, and planning sensibly for a possible second more virulent wave in the autumn.

No. The Government's problems are those of a regime that looks to be on its last legs: lots of headless chicken tittle-tattle blown up into major stories, new sleaze stories by the week, and a collapse of their political antennae.

In other words (this last week) non-stories about defections to the Liberal Democrats and Mrs Blears wanting to be PM, expenses and more expenses, and the Gurkhas.

Brown will survive the elections on June 4 and he'll stagger into the summer recess.

But if he can't pull things back in the summer he may not survive to the Labour conference.

And then we'll have a November election.