New Labour's big business donors are deserting in droves and the Party a reported £16m in the red. Now Brown is being forced to go cap in hand and cut a deal with the unions. But they won't hand over the cash without a few strings attached.
The unions meet with New Labour politicians this month, to put the finishing touches to the agenda for September's Labour Party conference.
So expect plans to strengthen working conditions, workers' rights and a commitment to pull troops out of Iraq.
But Brown faces an uphill task. It was New Labour under Blair who deliberately switched funding from the unions to the fat cats in big business, to wipe out the trade unions as a political force and break the Party's dependence on the unions.
The bad old days of rampant red trade union power which wrecked the country are over, but the unions will remind Brown they can still reach out and speak for the people who New Labour politicians in their arrogant bubble cannot reach.
The unions will remind Brown of that, before they hand over the cheques.
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