GORDON Brown is a desperate man. Why else is it expected that in his June Cabinet reshuffle he will appoint Schools Secretary Ed Balls as Home Secretary, as reported nationally?

This is the man who oversaw last year’s Sats tests debacle in our schools. The department he may take over is still not fit for purpose under the hapless Jacqui Smith, who followed the equally error-prone John Reid.

Will Mr Balls pick up the torch and carry on the Labour tradition of fiasco?

Mr Brown reportedly proposes moving Ms Smith from a department she has shown no tangible evidence that she could run, to an even more destructive position in charge of our children’s learning as Education Secretary.

If she runs education as she ran the Home Office, then we have real reason to be very concerned.

These appointments would beggar belief and also reflect the dearth of talent in Labour’s top ranks, as neither of these two demonstrate the safe pair of hands required to run these very important departments.

If this is, indeed, Mr Brown’s intention, it really is his, and Labour’s, last throw of the dice – or some may say, suicide note – before the party’s expected annihilation in the looming General Election.

Mark Anderson, Middleton St George, near Darlington.