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  The Trouble with Mr. Bean: British Voters Set to Punish Hapless Gordon Brown

The Trouble with Mr. Bean British Voters Set to Punish Hapless Gordon Brown

By Thomas Hüetlin in London

Part 2: Decline and Fall?

Many Britons no longer believe that the ponderous Brown is the right man to lead the country through a growing financial and economic crisis. After an 11-year boom, the longest in Great Britain's postwar history, many citizens have become accustomed to constantly growing prosperity. The stagnation or even decline in house prices, which had doubled and even tripled in only a decade, has triggered open resentment. Rising food costs, exploding energy prices and higher mortgage rates have also helped dampen the public's mood.

If shrinking demand is added to the mix, it could lead to a decline in domestic consumption, which, next to the real estate market and the financial sector, was an especially important engine of growth in the country's last upswing. All of this leads to growing mistrust. According to the results of a poll conducted by the Financial Times, "Gordon Brown is less trusted to steer his country through the global financial crisis than any other major western European leader."

This is a breathtaking decline in popularity for a man who came into office under the great expectation that he would introduce more transparency and thereby provide Labour with new credibility. Brown promised to put an end to the rhetorical smoke and mirrors and political marketing tricks of his predecessor Blair. During his first few months as prime minister, he was respectable and seemingly modest as he proved himself capable of meeting the challenges of the office. Wearing rubber boots, he visited flood-hit areas and ordered portable toilets, and he cut short his summer vacation immediately when the threat of a new outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease emerged.

His approval ratings shot up so rapidly at first that Labour believed it could "drive the Tories into the wilderness for decades" with an early election. The party had found its secret weapon: the anti-Blair. His slogan was "Not Flash, Just Gordon," an allusion to the American comic book superhero Flash Gordon.

But when the Tories reduced his substantial lead with a few cheap promises to lower taxes, Brown fell into a state of mind that many voters believe still has a hold on him today: He wavered, become indecisive and seemed fearful.

He also misled the public. His surprising decision to turn down an early election had nothing to do with his declining approval ratings, Brown said. But even the most committed Labour supporters know that the prime minister had chickened out and didn't even have the courage to admit it.

Insecurity has since become the prime minister's involuntary trademark. He signed the European Union's Treaty of Lisbon almost in secret, after his counterparts had gone to lunch, hoping to avoid further inciting anti-European sentiment in Great Britain.

His wavering during the London protests against Chinese human rights violations bordered on the comical. After Chinese security guards had accompanied the Olympic torch to No. 10 Downing Street, Brown stood in front of his door, grinning but trying not to take hold of the torch.

"Gordon is a worrier with an academic approach to solving problems," says Lord Desai. "But that does not always reassure people when they feel uncertain." Blair, on the other hand, was a leader with "phenomenal self-confidence," he says.

Brown's weak leadership has been burdened even more by a series of embarrassments and glitches that have brought him the reputation of being the Mr. Bean of British politics. In one incident, personal data relating to 25 million Britons, including their bank account numbers, was lost in the mail. In another, the Home Office approved 5,000 illegal immigrants for jobs as security guards. One of those jobs consisted of guarding Brown's official car.

The prime minister attempts to dismiss the derision over his mishaps as trivia, irrelevant compared with his "long-term projects." Unfortunately for Brown, however, neither voters nor his own party see it the same way. According to a recent poll, 70 percent of Britons are dissatisfied with their prime minister's performance. Their biggest complaint is that he is incapable of giving his government a clear direction.

Such charges reinforce a sneaking suspicion that even his political allies had before Brown became prime minister: Brown, they say, is a man who is eminently capable of analyzing complex information -- whether it relates to the economy or the global climate -- but doesn't know how to sell it. Though brilliant, he is essentially a man who is at his best playing second fiddle.

The man who Brown succeeded as prime minister returned to Westminster last week for the first time since he was forced to resign in June. In one of the buildings of parliament, Blair unveiled a portrait of himself in a pensive pose, wearing a white shirt open at the collar.

That same evening, the BBC reported on a few Labour MPs who had stood in front of the oil painting, bemoaning their party's decline and scheming once again: "Perhaps we should look around for a new party leader."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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