Gambling is an easy target for populist potshots but sometimes bookies have only themselves to blame

I wondered why Gordon Brown had been sticking his beak into the gambling debate lately – all that half-formed nonsense about raising taxes on gaming machines to offset the rise in energy bills (I've come up with my own plan to tax global fossil fuel companies to fund the Redundant Betting Shop Staff Benevolent Fund) – until I realised he had a book out and was obviously keen to find some populist titbits to dangle in front of the reviewers.

Of course, there is nothing more populist than a pledge to take money off the 'evil' betting industry to give to the poor and the disadvantaged. Leaving aside the fact we have no way of knowing where the revenue raised is going to end up, or how much revenue will be lost to the government as a direct consequence, it's the kind of outburst that will always be lapped up and regurgitated rather than questioned in even the meekest fashion.

So, I'm no fan of this kind of 'easy target' politics, but then sometimes the easy targets really don't help themselves.