LONDON: With his brooding aspect and sagging poll numbers, Prime Minister Gordon Brown had seemed to personify the bleak mood of a world traumatized by collapsing house prices, lost jobs and banks that would not lend. But that was last week. After devising a bank rescue plan that has now been endorsed by European and American officials -- and sent global stocks soaring immediately afterward -- he is being celebrated worldwide and has revived a political career that the "commentariat," as Brown disdainfully refers to the chattering classes, had predicted would soon be at an end. While Brown, 57, has moved up in the polls, he still trails his younger conservative rival, the fresh-faced David Cameron, 42, whose months of deft parliamentary jabs helped define Brown as a leaden, out of touch leader.
LONDON: With his brooding aspect and sagging poll numbers, Prime Minister Gordon Brown had seemed to personify the bleak mood of a world traumatized by collapsing house prices, lost jobs and banks that would not lend.
But that was last week.
After devising a bank rescue plan that has now been endorsed by European and American officials -- and sent global stocks soaring immediately afterward -- he is being celebrated worldwide and has revived a political career that the "commentariat," as Brown disdainfully refers to the chattering classes, had predicted would soon be at an end.
While Brown, 57, has moved up in the polls, he still trails his younger conservative rival, the fresh-faced David Cameron, 42, whose months of deft parliamentary jabs helped define Brown as a leaden, out of touch leader.
Everyone else still thinks he's an idiot. And they're not going to stop thinking he's an idiot as jobs go south, and public services are trashed.
