Good start for Britain’s Brown but clouds loom: experts

Katherine HADDON

IMPRESSIVE START: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made an impressive start since taking office in June, fueling whispers he may call snap elections, but economic woes threaten to cloud the picture, experts say.

Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair in June, has successfully portrayed himself as a calm, decisive leader who represents a clean break with the past particularly over the Iraq war, they add.

But there could be trouble ahead for the sober and serious former finance minister — the Bank of England’s recent bail-out of Britain’s Northern Rock bank highlighted flaws which threaten to destabilise the wider economy.

Brown will make his first address as leader to the Labour Party’s annual conference Monday after starting “superbly well,” said George Jones, emeritus professor of government at the London School of Economics.

“Brown may not be likeable, but what the British people like is a strong leader,” he added.

“He doesn’t engage the affection of people but they respect his strength.”

His first weeks in office were peppered with crises including foiled car bombings in London and Glasgow, serious floods, outbreaks of foot and mouth disease and the Northern Rock affair.

Several recent opinion polls which show Labour’s popularity rising despite these scares have fuelled press speculation that Brown could call an election as early as October in a bid to secure his own, personal mandate.

The Daily Telegraph reported Friday that Brown will wait until after this week’s conference before deciding whether to hold a snap poll.

But many experts say an election is unlikely while troops are still in Iraq and with the spectre of Northern Rock looming fresh in the mind of voters. The smart money seems to be on a poll in the middle of next year.

One factor boosting Brown is the distance he has put between himself and Blair, whose popularity was badly hit by issues including Iraq, according to Steven Fielding, associate professor of politics at Nottingham University.

“People just basically wanted to get rid of Tony Blair and there was a sigh of relief when he went,” Fielding told AFP.

“Things substantially aren’t that different but it’s just a change of perceptions.”

If anything did go wrong, experts say it would most likely be with Brown’s trump card, the economy — as the “Iron Chancellor,” he presided over ten years of stability and prosperity.

Mark Wickham-Jones, professor of politics at Bristol University, described the economy as the “big, black cloud” hanging over Brown’s premiership and Fielding agreed, saying it was “the one big threat.”

David Cameron, leader of the main opposition Conservatives, has argued that Brown was to blame for the Northern Rock crisis because he presided over a rise in public and private debt during his decade as chancellor.

Brown must counter such arguments if he is to retain his popularity, Wickham-Jones said, although a Guardian/ICM poll this week suggested that Labour’s popularity was not hit by the affair.

“The outlook doesn’t look as good as in the past and when things go wrong, electorates tend to blame the government,” he said.

While the banking crisis may have revived memories of Brown’s political past, one area where he has been more successful at drawing a line is Iraq.

Despite being the second most powerful man in government when the decision to support the United States-led 2001 invasion was taken, Brown has stepped back from the “special relationship” with President George W. Bush.

Since taking office, he has argued that mistakes were made in Iraq and appointed war skeptics to key posts, while officials have said that 500 British troops will pull out within weeks.

Jones said Brown had dealt with the US deftly and was “not so closely entwined” with Bush as Blair, dubbed the president’s poodle by critics, had been.

The “clear disengagement” on Iraq amounted to “a fundamental reorientation of foreign policy,” pulling Britain away from the US and towards stronger ties with Europe, Wickham-Jones added.

“Old Europe was very uncomfortable with (Iraq) and this means there’s more of a prospect of rapprochement,” he said.

Nevertheless, Brown, like late-period Blair, is seen as wary of Europe and believes that it is “too interventionist, that the market is a better way to deal with issues,” Fielding said.

While initial assessments of Brown’s first weeks in office are warm, many believe it will be difficult to sum him up satisfactorily until he presents his own policy programme to the country in a general election.

(AFP)