Was Gordon Brown launching the next General Election campaign in Wolverhampton yesterday? Peter Rhodes tried to get a straight answer.

The convoy of black limos pulled up, the men in suits got out and formed a protective posse behind The Big Man.

For a moment there was something familiar yet puzzling about the arrival of Gordon Brown at the Workspace in All Saints Road, Wolverhampton.

Then it clicked. It was just like that scene in Reservoir Dogs.

Later on we saw the harder side of the man his Scottish colleagues call The Great Broon. But first, the speculation. What was Gordon Brown out to achieve with his three-day tour of Britain?

As one in his phalanx admitted, strictly off-the-record, the latest raft of Labour policies are hardly world-shattering stuff. They could be perfectly well announced in the Commons rather than in Newcastle, York and Wolverhampton.

So is this the beginning of something else? The opening shots in the General Election campaign, perhaps? Is Gordon thinking of October?

One thing is certain, the PM won a few young fans. He stopped to chat, at ease and with great warmth, to Reanna Vernon, aged 18, and 16-year-old Sarah Ritzenthaler, two members of Wolverhampton Youth Council.

Vote

“Wow! I didn’t know what to say,” said Reanna of Parkfields, fresh out of Dudley College and hoping for a job working with children.

“It’s so amazing,” said Sarah, from Bridgnorth. “We were the first group he came to.”

Would they vote for him?

“I wouldn’t not vote for him.” said Reanna, diplomatically. “He comes across as very professional.”

Had they ever met a politician before?

“I’ve met Nick Clegg,” said Sarah at Wolverhampton Girls high School. “I’m a Liberal Democrat. I learned about their policies in our school mock election and I liked them.”

Gordon Brown opened his session at The Workspace with a half-hour meeting with local employers. It was behind closed doors and some bosses apparently gave the PM a hard time. One complained bitterly about the cost of training apprentices who were then poached by bigger firms. The PM said he’d look into it.

He clearly enjoyed his next job, launching The Youth of Today, a community programme for local teenagers. With more than two million on the dole and the prospects bleak for this year’s college-leavers, it takes superhuman optimism – or perhaps the state of “denial” alleged by David Cameron – to be so upbeat in the face of so many kids who will soon be discovering the unpleasant facts of life in a recession

But Mr Brown chatted and charmed and was relentlessly upbeat about the industries which would power Britain out of recession and into the sunlit uplands of a better tomorrow.

The problem is today, or more specifically, yesterday’s Express & Star report on the budget cuts announced by Advantage West Midlands. The Government has cut AWM’s budget by £50 million. More than 100 projects across our region have been mothballed.

I showed the Prime Minister our front page. He would not pick it up.

“But more money is to come into the region in the jobs programme we’ve just been discussing,” he insisted with a hint of irritation. “And we’re putting money into the JobCentres to enable them to help young people get jobs. ”

But was he aware of AWM’s problems?

“Well, of course I’m aware where there is an issue” he snapped, the smile vanishing. “But remember that more money is going in through the jobs programme and we’re probably helping several thousand businesses at the moment through the Treasury.”

Pensions

Then what of the other big spending story, of dozens of salaries bursting through the £50,000 barrier at Walsall Council? All those big salaries, all those huge, inflation-linked pensions. Can this sort of public spending be sustainable?”

Mr Brown declared: “We’re putting money into helping people get jobs, help people get apprenticeships. That is our priority at the moment,”

Maybe so. But how are private companies expected to grow, or even survive, when they are carrying the deadweight of our flabby, overpaid and over-pensioned public sector?

That is the biggest single question as the next General Election looms and Gordon Brown seemed determined not to answer it.

He is a famous question-dodger. Consider this on the significance of yesterday’s trip to Wolverhampton:

Me: “It has the feel, does it not, of the beginning of a General Election campaign?”

PM: “I think it’s got the feel of the beginning of young people taking more control of their own affairs.”

Me: “So it’s not the beginning of the General Election campaign?”

PM: “It’s the beginning of the young people’s leadership skills course.”

One of his party came over.

“You don’t think he’s thinking of an October election, do you?” he asked.

How the hell should I know? I buttonholed a Labour aide and put the question. Is it October?

“You may very well think that,” she smiled using the famous line from House of Cards. “I couldn’t possibly comment.”

Not exactly a day for straight answers.