Browned off

I wouldn't say the British public miss not having Tony Blair as prime minister, too many of them were glad to see the back of him, but there does seem to be a growing realization that, in Gordon Brown, they've ended up with a pig in a poke.

This from Polly Toynbee:-

Here is the puzzle. Those who know him know Gordon Brown to be a man of sincere beliefs with a profound concern for the poor at home and abroad. There is nothing showy or sham about him. But, alas, a good man doesn't necessarily make a good prime minister.
[...]
He has studied every aspect of every dilemma, met every global expert, perused every research paper, communed with every contrary opinion. He knows there is rarely one simple answer and the world is made of nuanced grey areas. But prime ministers have to make black and white choices every day. When he doesn't, he increasingly ends up with the worst of all worlds, pleasing no one.

Maybe he hasn't the character, the toughness, the fibre, the daring. He was always the Macbeth who failed to wield the knife. In those waiting, plotting years of half-cocked conspiracies, a Lady Macbeth would often have shouted: "Infirm of purpose!" Odd to want the crown so much and yet to lack the one essential qualification - not charisma, charm, gift of the gab or great oratory - but decisiveness and direction.

How does that rhyme go, again?

At Downing Street upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't Blair. He wasn't Blair again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away...

No chance of that anytime soon.