Brown flounders

Watching Gordon Brown being interviewed by Andrew Marr on BBC television yesterday morning, it's obvious that not only is the British Prime minister in deep denial over the causes of Labour's disastrous performance in the local elections, he is also completely and utterly out of his depth.

The video is here, but be warned - at times, it's uncomfortably like watching a clip from "The Office" with Brown seemingly failing to grasp the magnitude of the problems he faces ( "You're tested in leadership by how you deal with adversity", "I feel optimistic") and continually blaming Labour's decline on a troubled economy - I lost count of the number of times he said we were living through "difficult times".

The Guardian dubbed it Brown's "clunking fightback":-

Mr Brown is in denial if he thinks Labour lost last week because the media have been unkind or because voters are suffering economic pain. Yesterday he returned obsessively to the ground on which he made his name as chancellor. But his attempt to seek excuses in the downturn left him in the strange position, for a prime minister, of claiming that the country's economic problems are more serious than they actually are.

And Ann Treneman in a sketch for the Times commented on Brown's lack of substance:-

Actually, we could have done with more of a plan. He refused to tell us any details of how he’s saving our economy. Indeed, his only actual plan seemed to be that he wants to get out more and meet us. He wants to listen. He wants to empathise. He also wants to apologise. The man for whom sorry has been the hardest word now, suddenly, can’t stop talking about his mistakes, about the 10p tax cut, the general election that wasn’t, blah blah blah.

All in all, it seems Brown's media appearances over the weekend have only served to deepen Labour's sense of malaise.

Will there be a leadership challenge? There's been talk of it but it's difficult to see how Labour could replace Brown and be in any condition to face the electorate in two years time: there is no obvious candidate for the leadership and the process of electing one could tear the party in two.

I keep thinking if it wasn't for Iraq, Blair might still be in power and Britain would have been spared Brown's premiership. Brown might then have gone down in history as Blair's "Iron Chancellor" and perhaps been thought of as the best prime minister Britain never had. Reality is quite the opposite.