Gordon Brown

[Andrew Curnow]

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister, you know the chap. Now I've never been a fan of his, all the time he was Chancellor, and I was as appalled as anyone when he became PM more or less on Tony Blair's say-so and nothing else. Yet now, I find myself feeling more and more sympathy for him.

He seems to be taking the flak for the expenses scandal, which can't really be laid specifically at his door, and it's reached the stage now where the media would have us believe he can't do anything right - tonight's HIGNFY, for example, seemed to be taking the mickey out of him wanting to shake hands, or his jacket undoing.

It's almost as if he's like JN-T was in the late 80s - no matter what he does, he will be criticised and have the blame for all failures poured on him.

So, Gordon Brown - doing the best he can and being treated unfairly for it, or deserves everything he gets?

[Si Hunt]

I think one has to remember that he wasn't forced to take on the most important, highly paid job in the country. Yet it's one he seems to have neither the charisma, the drive nor the skill to do, as our country plunges towards record borrowing, huge debt and a crippled housing market.

Again, he's paid hundreds of thousands a year and things just keep getting worse. Why won't he give up before he drags us all under?

Plus he personally had to pay back public money when it emerged he'd claimed the same expenses twice. From the man responsible for our country, never mind a former chancellor, that's shocking.

Si. :mobile

[Jamie McCrimmon]

It's the Prime Minister's duty to know how things are done, he represents Britain in the world and does it very badly. He's incompetent and any sympathy going should be directed at the country he's wrecked and the poor sods who have to spend the next few decades paying for it.

I think Brown won't resign because he's already an unelected Prime Minister, and to resign would mean we had a second consecutive unelected PM, which might force an early election. They know they're out of power next June anyway, so they're just hanging on to the scraps for as long as they can, and probably doing more damage in the knowledge that it will be Cameron's problem.

[Captain Tancredi]

Brown could have been unseated last May after the European elections- that he didn't probably indicates that there's no enthusiasm from any possible leadership candidates for leading Labour to defeat in the election which we have to have in the next six months. If I were Alan Johnson, Ed Balls or David Miliband I'd be looking at doing what Tony Blair did and becoming a popular public figure in opposition while hoping that the Tories get in and the economy continues to get worse.

Unfortunately he also has several mannerisms which are a gift to comedians and impressionists- the humourless delivery (he could read a dirty limerick in a way which would make it sound like the GDP of Swaziland for the last ten years), prominent jowls, not closing his mouth in between sentences and a general awkwardness when he's in the public eye. The likes of Obama, Sarkozy and Merkel know he's a dead man walking so they'll just let him make an idiot of himself- there's a passage in Bill Clinton's autobiography where he mentions being briefed on the Major government in its last couple of years and warned not to allow himself to become associated too strongly with a leader whose days are numbered.

[Lissa]

I think one has to remember that he wasn't forced to take on the most important, highly paid job in the country

is a little harsh as the PM earns £197,689 per year while Sir Alex Ferguson (to take an easily Googleable example) earns £3.6m a year.

Gordon Brown's problem is that he isn't Prime Minister material. He only became PM because he and Blair did a deal in the mid-90s that one day young Tony would hand power to Gordie with a bow on it. In return, Brown would support Blair as Chancellor and not use his influence to undermine New Labour. He seemed to do a pretty good job as Chancellor - dour Scots make good bank managers. And as a power-behind-the-throne figure he had a certain presence.

But I still forget he's Prime Minister even after two and a half years. It isn't his fault the world economy collapsed (not completely anyway) or that we're involved in two unpopular wars started by leaders no longer in office. Nor is it his fault that an expenses system that Thatcher introduced, Major and Blair did nothing about and which only blows up in his reign was taken advantage of. Tony Blair's reputation may be in ruins but he was still the luckiest man in the world to resign when he did. The people and the media blame whoever is in office when the S. hits the F. and doesn't really care whose bowels were responsible.

Ultimately, Gordon Brown is the new Jim Callaghan. People will barely remember him in ten years time. But Tony Blair - like Margaret Thatcher - will remain infamous for generations.