Awkward no more: how Gordon Brown found his voice | Steve Richards

Twitter erupted with excitement. Everyone with a vote needs to watch this. Gordon Browns speech is as good as everyone says it is. These were tweets from right-of-centre columnists after Brown had delivered a mesmerising speech on the final day of campaigning in Scotland. Across the political spectrum there was noisy praise for the inspirational address.

The compliments were not a freakish one-off. Earlier this year the election expert John Curtice told me that Brown alone in the pro-union campaign was framing messages that would appeal to the dont knows. Last week Brown was the one urgently negotiating with party leaders at Westminster in order to unveil measures that would stop the dramatic swing towards the yes campaign. The return of Brown as a political force has been a marked and unexpected feature of the campaign.