On the ropes, and with his party in open revolt just weeks ago, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is now feted worldwide as the man who saved the world from a repeat of the Great Depression.
By the summer of 2008 most UK political commentators had written Gordon Brown off and it seemed only a matter of time before he would be forced out of office, but the global credit crisis gave the cold and unsympathetic leader a shot of political Viagra.
The British plan to boost liquidity and recapitalize banks by taking government stakes won wide praise. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said on October 12 that Brown had "defined the character of the worldwide rescue effort, with other wealthy nations playing catch-up."
Now when Brown calls for a new Bretton Woods, the 1944 conference that defined the post-war financial order, the world listens. His name is being mentioned in the same breath as Churchill and Roosevelt.
Long seen as the brains behind New Labor, the dour, uncharismatic former finance minister finally took over from deadly political rival Tony Blair in June 2007. But within months his popularity fell to rock bottom after he dithered over whether to call a snap election.
With opinion poll ratings in free-fall and senior figures within the Labor Party openly plotting his demise, Brown appeared indecisive, isolated, and doomed.
But by October all was forgiven as the gloomy Scot's plan to halt Britain's financial crisis became the model for the world to follow, after the failure of the US Treasury's $700 billion plan to buy toxic debt. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and after a decent interval, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson fell into line and announced his government would take stakes in Wall Street banks.
The political rewards began to roll in for Brown. Opinion poll figures recovered and Labor's triumph in a by-election on November 6, in a seat the party was expected to lose to the Scottish Nationalists, was widely seen as a resounding endorsement for his leadership on the economy.
But Brown's political resurrection is by no means assured. As the world plunges into the worst economic downturn since 1929, no incumbent leaders are likely to escape unscathed. And questions must remain over the judgment of the man whose political mantra as co-leader of New Labor was that "the era of boom and bust" was over.
(China.org.cn by John Sexton, November 14, 2008)
