Both Blair and Brown had long been frustrated with the old Labour’s trajectory and the constant infighting within the party, and were convinced of the need for the party to change if it were to capture the British hearts and minds. The deal that Blair and Brown struck to break out of this rut and that has shaped British politics ever since was to make Brown the most powerful chancellor in the history of British politics with unprecedented control over domestic policy while paving the way for Blair to be the leader of the party and Britain’s prime minister.

As Blair moved to transform the landscape of British politics by seizing the middle ground and relegated the extremes on both the right and the left to the margins, Brown set about exerting his control over the British Treasury with “Stalinist ruthlessness” and made sure that his reach extended into every area of domestic policy. Thus emerged Gordon Brown’s unique selling point: competence.

It’s that competence that is in question today as economic woes mount for the British people. The run on the Northern Rock, Britain’s fifth-largest mortgage lender which is being sustained by emergency funding from the Bank of England and seems on the verge of being nationalised, has become emblematic of current British economic troubles amid fears of a recession, a fall in housing prices and a rise in unemployment.

Foreign policy was never Brown’s strong suit but even after six months as the head of the British government, it is remarkable that apart from his known passion for Africa, so little is known as to where Brown stands on major foreign policy issues facing Britain. Incoherence in foreign affairs — including Iraq — has left Britain with few friends on either side of the Atlantic as France under a charismatic Nicholas Sarkozy and Germany under an effective Angela Merkel have moved in to fill the vacuum left by Blair by courting America and the EU is also being shaped more by France and Germany than by British interests.

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