Gordon Brown is in his element

Isn’t Gordon Brown looking more comfortable recently? With the current financial (I don’t want to use the word ‘crisis’) situation, I think he is more in his comfort zone, as he was for such a long time Chancellor of the Exchequer to such good effect.

I have felt quite sorry for him since he took office as Prime Minister as it has seemed as if he has been the target of malicious actions such as personal information being lost all of a sudden by government organisations, this and other government misdemeanours apparently showing him to be inadequate as Prime Minister. He has faced considerable criticism from his own party, let alone the opposition and yet he was unopposed in the Labour leader contest (not that you could, as such, call it a contest). Whatever happened to loyalty, and standing by your leader and your party? Don’t these people realise that they are damaging the Labour party far more by all this division than Gordon Brown could ever hope to manage on his own?

But in recent days, Mr Brown has really come into his own. He has led the way in Europe and America with the rescue package that he and his Chancellor, Alistair Darling, have set out, and seems to grow in confidence every time he is seen. I hope for his sake that this is not just a temporary thing, and that the country will stand behind him in the trying months to come.

In America the New York Times says “he is being celebrated worldwide” while the Washington Post describes him as having “emerged from the global financial crisis as a leader whose ideas are influencing policy from Europe to Washington…Brown’s standing with his European peers was in evidence Sunday in Paris, where he was invited to attend an emergency summit of leaders of the 15 countries that use the Euro as their currency. European officials said Brown’s presence added to the sense of unity and authority at the meeting”. In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald states that “Gordon Brown has won praise at home and abroad for taking a lead in tackling the global financial crisis, reversing his image from doomed ditherer to would-be saviour in weeks”.

Now, I’m not claiming that he’s perfect, and neither am I claiming to be a political expert. But from where I am sitting, I cannot for the life of me see who our alternatives to Mr Brown as Prime Minister could be. I can’t think of any Labour heavyweights who would be up to the job right now. And as for a resurgence of the Conservative party; can no-one remember the 1980s? Even if the Tory party is different now than it was then, I have absolutely no confidence in David Cameron as the leader of our country. And I’m afraid that the Lib Dems are too small a party, even if Vince Cable has had some good ideas recently, to be able to turn it around and govern any time soon. As far as I can see, they missed their chance when the Conservatives were at their lowest ebb a couple of years back. It was then that they could have conceivably leapfrogged their way into becoming the second largest political party.

In my constituency it is a clear fight between Labour and the Tories, so I intend to keep voting Labour for the foreseeable future. A vote for anyone other than them would in effect be a vote for the Tories, which is the last thing I want (other than the BNP, anyway!). I am both anticipating and dreading the next general election, which has to happen sometime in the next twenty months. I am interested to see whether the Tories really have managed to garner as much voter support as is claimed, or whether it is just an interim dissatisfaction with recent Labour policy which will not be strong enough to sway the voters. Either way I think that turnout will be low, as the distinguishing lines between the main parties seem to become ever more blurred.