Is Labour going for a "Dubya" strategy with Johnson?

Everybody hated George "Dubya" Bush right? Where everybody on the left at least, but not the millions of Americans who voted for him. One of the reasons that he was popular, so it is said at last, was his "folksyism" (sp?). The chattering classes considers this just evidence of him being thick, but for many it made him down to earth when he said things like "nucular".

Why do I mention this? Well you see, I'm wondering if the Labour Party is in fact going for the "Dubya" strategy with Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor. He's been so gaffe prone on the economics, with his most recent cock-up of telling Sky News that National Insurance is 20%, that it has to be some sort of deliberate strategy surely?

I say this because responding to the cock-up, a Labour source said,

"We would rather have a Chancellor who knows the difference between a regressive and progressive tax and who knows about real life than get involved in a Westminster parlour game."

The line being here that most people haven't got a clue how much the rate of NI is and simply know what their net take-home is, so it makes sense to have a Chancellor just like them?

Actually, who am I kidding trying to find some sort of clever political strategy to explain Johnson's poor performances? It's far more likely he's just a bit a crap and not up to the job.