Gordon's Bad Day

In preliminary meetings before the G20 economic summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel ruled out Prime Minister Gordon Brown's idea for a full integrated international economic recovery plan.  Chancellor Merkel believes that time is needed for a 50 billion euro stimulus package passed by the Bundestag to work and that any further stimulus package needs to be done by national governments and not international bodies.  This is a minor setback for President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner who support an integrates stimulus plan.

However, this is a huge setback for Gordon Brown and his Labour government.  With an election due within a year and the Conservatives holding double digit leads in most polls, Brown saw financial recovery as the key to his reelection.  This lead to a bit of unintentional parliamentary humor when Brown claimed to save the world.

Brown's popularity briefly saw a leap in the fall when he first launched his effort to save the world's financial markets but as the British economy has tanked and Labour's popularity continues to fall.  Brown is already unpopular because he inherited Tony Blair's unpopularity over the Iraq War.  Brown is also unpopular because as Chancellor of the Exchequer he designed many of the policies that are viewed as leading to the economic meltdown.  Add to this Brown's reputation for being indecisive and you have the recipe for a major electoral defeat.

If you are a Gordon Brown fan(like liturgygeek) then pay close attention to him during the next year because it looks like that is all he has before he moves off the world political stage and David Cameron moves on.