AFTER THE relaunch following the election-that-never-happened, and the relaunch that followed the illegal funding disclosure, lost CDs and the failure of Northern Rock, Gordon Brown has told his close policy aides that the real message of his government is still being held hostage to events outwith his control. The remedy? On the back of the resignation of Peter Hain and the forced reshuffle of his Cabinet, the prime minister has effectively ordered - another relaunch.

With the government's whips' office giving notice to Number 10 last week that it cannot guarantee the outcome in the Commons of proposed legislation on holding terrorist suspects for up to 42 days without charge, Brown's latest relaunch suddenly became the first major test of communication and strategy for new chief of staff Stephen Carter.

The former chief executive of Brunswick, a leading public relations and lobbying company, was brought in by Brown at the beginning of this month and given the formidable task of overseeing policy development, communications and political strategy.

With the departure of Hain, plus the widespread criticism, even in senior Labour ranks, that Brown and Alistair Darling's handling of Northern Rock has been a lesson in extended indecision, Brown's hope of looking authoritative on anti-terror law is already looking like another political error. He faces a new crisis by charging into a potentially damaging defeat in the Commons. Carter's management credentials, and the government's dwindling reputation for making the right call, are now heading towards a knife-edged vote.

Barely three weeks into his job, Carter is the pivotal figure in the third relaunch since Brown took over from Blair at the end of June last year. One senior Tory said that, with Carter's background including spells at the JWT advertising agency, he would be used to "rebranding a failing product".

He added: "We've had Labour, then New Labour. Now we've had just Gordon, then Gordon with vision, followed by getting-on-with-the-job Gordon. But what we haven't had is competent Gordon."

Still finding his feet at Number 10 and unlikely to have altered Brown's continued reliance on the close-knit team who have been around him for years, Carter will find it tough to change Brown into the pragmatic figure that will need to emerge from this latest crisis.

One former Labour minister told the Sunday Herald: "There is a certain terror that lurks every time a new opinion poll comes out. Hain's resignation and the way the Northern Rock rescue was announced just won't help us.

"But, instead of focusing on what we can and should be doing, we appear, like the Light Brigade, to be charging towards a defeat in the Commons over legislation that is unconvincing and unnecessary. If he's looking to be decisive, this isn't going to work. Its dangerous and once again brings into question his political judgement."

Hain's departure is the latest example of Brown's indecision. His resignation was the culmination of a long and hesitant silence from Number 10 which, after weeks, had finally admitted Hain was guilty of "an incompetence" - but left it at that. The police, not the prime minister, left Hain with no choice.

The appointment of Carter was supposed to the missing ingredient that would restore Brown's prudent and competent reputation. Carter's task, for those not fans of Brown's close magic-circle of advisers, is to begin telling the PM things he might not want to hear.

The latest relaunch is, according to those who know him, Carter's opportunity to help deliver a brand of decisive pragmatic decision-making absent from Number 10 for most of Brown's seven-month tenure.

Carter is described as not able to suffer fools gladly. As Brown's principal adviser, and reporting directly to the PM, his appointment was spoken of in managerial terms with expectations of "sharpening up decision-making" being a reliable "fixer and filter" and of being at the centre of Brown's ambitious "programme of reform".

Three weeks may be too little time to tell just what difference he's making. But, some time before the summer recess, Labour will have to be seen as being back on track or Carter will have failed before he's even started.

Parking any Commons decision on the introduction of ID cards until after the next election, which was quietly leaked last week, means Carter's in-tray looks better than it did. Brown's chief of staff will also be sleeping better knowing that reform of elections to the Commons has also been kicked into the long grass, with any review of electoral systems now placed beyond 2010.

Key problems, however, remain. Northern Rock and Goldman Sachs's bond-driven rescue will need to be portrayed as a success before the European Commission's deadline of March. As Brown's communication's chief, Carter will be in charge of selling Northern Rock as a good news story. And there is no guarantee that is achievable.

A humiliating defeat on the 42-day terror legislation will brand Brown a loser and leave the party facing one of its gloomiest conferences on record this autumn.

Estimates from the whips' office point to a rebellion of more than 40 Labour MPs which, alongside opposition votes from the Tories and the LibDems, would be enough to defeat government plans.

The deployment of home secretary Jacqui Smith to help win over sceptical back-benchers sounds like a last-ditch strategy rather than a certainty.

A Labour MP who listened to Smith last Monday in the Commons urge the importance of securing 42 days, said: "We really heard nothing new and, frankly, a lot of it was patronising stuff, such as information held, information which pointed to, information which showed the scale of the threat - and yet we know very little about what lies behind the need for this."

He added: "And while we talk our police, angry over their pay, march past us outside Westminster. You have to ask if we're getting our priorities right here. We'll put tens of billions up to save a bank, and we ignore the police."

The solution for Brown was to shout "Get Carter!" But now he has him, will he listen to him?