2 (C/NF) Gordon Brown has suffered a wretched two weeks  during which he was implicated in the "Smeargate" scandal  suffered his first defeat in the House of Commons after a massive defection of his own party members over the issue of Gurkhas' rights  and was forced into a public last-minute change of policy to avoid a second defeat on reform of the Second Homes Allowance for MPs (Refs A and B)