A man whose time has passed him by?

Throughout history there have been occasions when a man with particular accomplishments has met his moment and triumphed, no matter what weaknesses he may have possessed in other areas. All those are forgotten when man and moment collide and the result is momentous. One such could be said to be Winston Churchill, a politician with a patchy record until World War Two when his aggression and fighting spirit was right for the time.

Could the opposite be true of Gordon Brown? Everyone with an interest in British politics knows the story of the battle for the succession as leader of the Labour Party back in 1994 after the sad death of John Smith, and how that battle was won by Tony Blair over a meal with Gordon in a now famous London restaurant deal. How Gordon became our most successful Chancellor of the Exchequer in many years, striding the British political stage like a colossus, so powerful that he even frightened Blair, who, it is said, was afraid to move him from the Chancellor's job.



How Brown so fell out with Blair that he created a separate political machine, his acolytes briefing against the Prime Minister in ways reminiscent of the old Roman senate. Who could forget the brooding stocky figure hunched on the front benches, hardly able to look at his leader during Parliamentary debates?

Then, at last after playing the rather reluctant bridesmaid for thirteen years, Brown finally got the top job, the job he had long claimed was his destiny. A job he would now bestride in a manner similar to his Chancellorship - master of all he surveyed.

But what happened? Brown has had the job for 12 months and the impact he has had on the nation is rather like that of the school bully who has frightened everyone all term until someone pulls his trousers down in public and the aura of powerful invincibility is gone.

Gordon Brown suddenly looks like a loser. He looks like the man every Blairite warned against when the war between the two men became vitriolic. A man who made his name as an able lieutenant but who can't cope with the top job.

He began his term of office with a dither - should we or should we not hold an election to grant him a personal mandate, on which he finally chickened out - and that sense of dither has been the lingering impression ever since. Northern Rock Bank - should it be nationalised or not? The government hesitated for weeks and weeks over what to do until investor confidence was at rock bottom. We have had the disastrous data losses from various government bodies and departments. OK not Brown's fault personally but his appointed ministers don't really give an impression of being in control of the ship. Embarrassing, ludicrous statistics about immigrants from eastern Europe where the government was forced to admit it had underestimated by many thousands.

Tony Blair, for all my belief that he should have gone over Iraq, would have recognised the signs of a government in disarray and done something about it, even if it was a cosmetic press conference. He would have done something to show he was in control.

Brown looks tired, plodding and, at the moment, incapable of stamping his authority on the Labour government as it begins to fall further and further behind in the polls. Now even his own ministers are making veiled remarks like 'We need to sharpen our image with the public' Alistair Darling, Brown's replacement as Chancellor said this yesterday and it has to be a muted criticism of his leader.

When things start to go wrong, everything goes wrong. Brown flew to the United States on Tuesday to see Bush and the American bankers about the money markets and their impact here in the UK. It was a great opportunity to create a few headlines and show Brown in his image of world statesman but he - or his advisors - failed to spot the fact that Pope Benedict was flying in too. How did they manage that? The 'Guardian' newspaper summed it up by saying 'Great excitement in US as world leader flies in ....oh yeah, and the British Prime Minister arrived as well.'

Unless Brown can miraculously find the touch he once had as Chancellor and manage to convey some authority, the phrase 'dead man walking' seems grimly prophetic. But maybe the Blairites were right all along. Maybe Brown is a details man and cannot command the big picture..but something needs to change very soon or his political career, so star-studded for so long, will end in ignominy and defeat.