IT IS very easy to attack our beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the moment.

It is difficult to know quite why he went to see the oilmen in Scotland yesterday.

It's as if he expected his presence alone to enable them to discover an untapped oilfield which they had somehow managed to overlook for the past 40 years.

It is difficult to know quite where his policy is heading on fuel taxes. More U-turns would be embarrassing, but as the price of petrol is way above what the Chancellor reckoned it should be for environmental reasons, it is difficult see how a further 2p rise can be justified. Equally, it is difficult to see how increasing road tax on cars bought seven years ago is fair when it is today's and tomorrow's purchases of new vehicles that need to be influenced.

So it is easy to attack because he is in so many difficult positions.

But let's applaud a decision he took yesterday.

He announced that Britain would sign the treaty banning clusterbombs.

Previously, anonymous Ministry of Defence officials were insisting that Britain would not give up the weapon because it was so useful.

However, future wars will not be solely about winning territory. As we've found in Iraq, we need to be winning over hearts and minds, and allowing children to be blown up by our clusterbombs will not advance our cause one jot.

So Mr Brown has done what he believes is right. It is practically a return to the "ethical foreign policy" that made New Labour so refreshing 11 years ago.

Maybe this signals a new start for Mr Brown, too. There is no point him worrying about the polls now because they say he is doomed to lose. No spin can save him.

Instead, he should just do what he believes to be right. No clever stuff to outflank the Tories, no sneaky stuff to meddle with our tax bills so that we don't notice.

He should be up-front and proud, and perhaps then voters would at least come to respect him, even if they still didn't like him.