The decks are being cleared and the unsightly policy baggage thrown overboard as the rival captains look to the choppy electoral waters ahead.

The decks are being cleared and the unsightly policy baggage thrown overboard as the rival captains look to the choppy electoral waters ahead.

It has been a truly torrid time of late for Gordon Brown.

After the embarrassing volte-face on the Gurkhas, the PM sought to use his cabinet reshuffle to relaunch his premiership but it ended up with a mass of resignations.

The attempt to shuffle off Alistair Darling from the Chancellorship and replace him with Mr Brown's apprentice Ed Balls failed, much to the premier's embarrassment.

The fact that, following the incendiary resignation of James Purnell, Lord Mandelson stayed the hands of David Miliband and Alan Johnson meant the Prime Minister's survival is now in the gift of his colleagues.

More than that, his authority is much diminished, which means political and parliamentary battles which otherwise could have been attempted are now avoided at all costs.

The PM sought to take the initiative on cleaning up the Westminster stable on expenses but got seriously bruised over his proposal for a clocking-on fee for MPs.

Then we had the Iraq inquiry, which, no doubt, Mr Brown hoped would show his government honouring a pledge, but there were so many U-turns on how it would run, people began to lose count.

If the nation's leader was looking for an uplift from his pre-legislative programme, then he must have been sorely disappointed as the last few days have been particularly grim for the PM, who continues his promotional tour of England.

Building Britain's Future, the policy document setting out his vision for 2010 and beyond, was slammed by his critics for being a mishmash of reheated policies.

There was a defeat for the PM on the Parliamentary Standards Bill when, for the first time, ex-Home Secretary John Reid voted against the UK Government over allowing parliamentary proceedings to be admissible as court evidence.

Leaks seeped out that Mr Brown's bullish attempt to paint the election battle as "Labour investment versus Tory cuts" did not even convince his cabinet colleagues, who are now more confident in challenging their enfeebled leader and are seeking to nuance the strategy to admit that some reductions in some areas of spending might have to happen.

The premier's performance at PMQs last week was pitiful when he could not bring himself to admit that capital spending would fall after 2011, even though the Treasury's own figures showed it would. Remarkably, this week's performance was even worse when Mr Brown misspoke and referred to a "zero per cent rise".

After much ducking and diving, we were also finally told there would be no Comprehensive Spending Review this year.

Downing Street is now resorting to Treasury jargon about spending "envelopes" and admitting that spending figures post 2011, which the PM gave the impression were hard and fast, are really "projections based on assumptions" - in other words, guesswork.

Then, we had the undignified sight of the PM having to answer questions about whether in fact he was an honest man. "I have always told the truth," he declared.

Amidst all of this, there have been the climbdowns on ID cards and part-privatisation of the Royal Mail, all tipped overboard because Mr Brown wants to begin the conference season - and the election campaign - with as little negative baggage as possible.

But he is not alone. David Cameron has also been ditching as much negative baggage as he can.

Last week, the Tory leader said his party was wrong to oppose Scottish devolution, while this week he publicly apologised for Section 28, the law introduced by the Thatcher government banning local authorities from promoting homosexuality.

The Tories' poll ratings of late have not been overly impressive either; of the last six snapshots only one has shown them touching 40%, with the others all in the high 30s. One lead over Labour was just 11 points.

So while Mr Brown has been bruised and battered by a relentless barrage of bad headlines over failed policies and embarrassing U-turns, one could argue that the Conservatives should be doing much, much better in the opinion polls. The battle for No 10 is not over yet.