Gordon Brown today tried to put his difficult week behind him by announcing that moustaches are to be made compulsory for all British men. The move is a return to the regulations which made moustaches obligatory for soldiers in the 1860s, at which time the 'hirsute accessory' was credited with helping to build the British Empire. A spokesman for the Prime Minister confirmed this afternoon that Mr Brown's own moustache will be brushed and pomaded, trained with iron curling tongs and its follicles fertilised with unguents.