But just when it seemed safe to pack the bucket and spade, he's walked into the biggest potential man-trap of them all, an admission that former Chancellor "Mr Prudence" has actually spent all the money and so needs to change the financial rules.
The news leaked last week that the government was going to have to borrow more and blow big holes in its two financial rules: money would only be borrowed for "investment" (a pretty elastic term admittedly) and it wouldn't borrow more than 40% of GDP.
Both of which, Chancellor Alistair Darling admitted to The Times on Saturday, it would need to do.
This came hot on the heels of denying the story on Thursday and Friday. As such it's manna from heaven for Tory leader David Cameron.
Brown is always saying the Tories don't have any economic policies; Cameron can now turn around and say the government clearly hasn't any either.
This is a disaster for Brown, who looked as though he would be able to set off for Southwold with the media finally tiring of "Brown must go, Brown is about to go" stories.
One of the benefits of the long parliamentary recess (two months) is that it gives politicians a breathing space while the hacks have to find something else to write about.
But now they've got a story which can be endlessly resuscitated as the bad economic news points to a heavy winter ahead, for the public even more than the politicians.
Goodness knows what the PM's "chief strategist" Stephen Carter makes of all this.
The new regime in Number 10 is supposed to be about a more realistic approach to communications -- it's tough out there but we have the experienced captain at the tiller.
But would you trust a captain who admits he can't read a map?
Brown may still get away with it, although just about everyone in Whitehall now acknowledges that he's even more addicted to spin than his fabled predecessor, and what good does it do him?
Apparently, he's even been on the phone to Alastair Campbell, who can't stand him.
The one thing that might save Brown, though not necessarily the Labour Party, is the reality that there's no obvious alternative.
Foreign secretary David Miliband is irredeemably geeky and, even though he's popular at the Foreign Office, also says some spectacularly stupid things -- like Afghanistan being the new White Cliffs of Dover.
Nobody outside the Labour Party has heard of work and pensions secretary James Purnell, although a few more benefit seekers (mostly Labour voters) will today as he announces the latest "crackdown".
Harriet Harman, as she herself has said, realises that many men would try to leave the country if she became PM. No bad thing perhaps, but hardly a vote-winner.
So Brown may be able to muddle through. But he's just made it a whole lot harder for himself.
Politics of the media is a regular series of opinion pieces for Brand Republic about the way media shapes politics and vice-versa. Stephen Foster is a partner at The Editorial Partnership and can be contacted at:steve-edco@blueyonder.co.uk.