If real life were a movie, instead of a cruel and horrifying string of random unfolding events, the mortifying slow-motion car crash that is Gordon Brown's premiership would inspire pity in all but the most stone-hearted audience member. Assailed from all directions, stumbling, bumbling, droning, punch-drunk, hapless, hopeless, and aching with palpable misery, he increasingly resembles a depressed elephant, slowly being felled by a thousand pin-sized arrows fired into his hide by a million tiny natives, still somehow moving forward, trudging wearily toward its allotted graveyard-slot with morose resignation.

Here is a man apparently allergic to luck. Nothing goes right for the Brown minister. He can't even pop on to YouTube and attempt a smile without everyone laughing and calling him creepy. And they're right. The smiles were creepy: they made him look like the long-dead corpse of a gameshow host resurrected by a crazed scientist in some satirical horror movie. It's Saturday night, live from Television Centre! The theme tune plays on a church organ. Your children shriek when he bounds on to the screen. As he descends the glittering staircase, one decomposing arm drops off at the shoulder socket, hitting the studio floor with a damp thud. Oblivious, he steps over it to approach camera one, gazing down the lens with frozen eyes, intermittently twitching that smile. Your screen cracks. Hot plasma leaks out. This broadcast is over.

In fact Brown's extended drubbing has gone far beyond mere eeriness, and now teeters on the verge of harrowing spectacle - a protracted humiliation so total, so crushing, that merely witnessing it feels almost as terrible as being the man on its receiving end. It's like someone's dropped an indignity bomb directly on his head, and we're all caught up in the blast.

Normally, to experience this sort of shared mutual shame, you would have to stumble unannounced into a room and unexpectedly catch someone doing something acutely embarrassing, such as masturbating or miming to Kaiser Chiefs in front of a mirror. Following 10 crushed eons of infinite silence, both parties would stare at the ground for a few moments, you'd mutter a dented apology about knocking first next time, inch your way backwards through the door as though quietly observing a religious ceremony, and spend the next half hour standing in the corridor cringing your skin inside out. From then on you'd share your painful-yet-private little circle of grief in silence, the pair of you implicitly understanding that The Incident Must Never Be Referred To Again.

That's what would happen on a personal level. This is different. This is national. We're all witnesses to The Incident. And I don't know about you, but I'm finding the tension unbearable. I can't wait for the general election - not because I want to see Prime Minister Wormface Cameron smugging his way into Downing Street, because I don't - but just because I don't think I can bear this mishap-strewn landscape a moment longer. It's like being trapped in a hot room filled with an overpowering fart smell, waiting for someone outside to come along and open the window.

In the meantime, is there anything Brown can do? On Friday, Simon Jenkins suggested in this paper that a hastily orchestrated overseas war might save the prime minister's bacon, although, given his track record for bumbling calamity, picking a fight with an entire country seems ridiculously ambitious. Maybe he could declare war on a small town - something the size of Newbury or Ashby de la Zouch. Don't worry about the motive - just make something up. Claim the inhabitants were illegally stockpiling Tamiflu or something, then pound them for a fortnight using all the murderous technology the Ministry of Defence can muster. Use something exotic. Something you have to drop from a Super Huey.

Something that whooshes and goes bang and looks cool in widescreen. Dish out a medal each time one of the residents gets a leg shot off. And when everyone's dead, or at least they've stopped twitching, plant a flag in the council offices, pop up some "Mission Accomplished" bunting and plough through the market square in a whopping great tank for a photo opportunity and press conference.

Failing that, simply bursting into tears on live TV might be a good move. Pay a visit to This Morning for an ostensibly upbeat chat about how this whole government thing's been working out for you, then suddenly go quiet and well up. Wait till Phillip Schofield puts a hand on your shoulder before letting rip - but when you let rip, really LET RIP. Wail. Howl. Punch the cushions. Quake with sobs. Say you're sorry for all the mistakes and beg for a chance to put it all right. Make stuff up if necessary.

Pretend you've been a heroin addict or something like that. Weep 16 litres right there on the sofa if you have to.

Or tell a joke! A bad one! Anything! Do any-thing! Please - just do something to clear the air. Because the public still has a few pity cells left. Many will forgive you. I'm not sure everyone believes the current mess is entirely your fault. It's just the tragic-comic misery and embarrassment of it all. It's too much for our embattled nation to bear. It's awful. Truly awful.

• This week Charlie was APPALLED to discover that the "Builder's Breakfast" atrocity won the Walkers crisps flavour contest: "Even though it tasted like someone burping egg at you through a jockstrap. Which maybe was the idea."