Britain's Gordon Brown: Channelling Paul Martin

As the aristocratic Castilian philosopher George Santayana famously said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

This is the curious fate of Britain's dour, Presbyterian prime minister, Gordon Brown. He seems condemned to repeat the past, even if it is one from another country and likely unremembered by him, but which he might want to study.

The country is Canada and the instructive history is that of Paul Martin.

The two men — Brown and Martin — share much in common. Both seemed destined for power at an early age: Martin as the son of a powerful minister denied the prime ministership; Brown as a Scottish wunderkind who dominated university politics and then entered the British House of Commons at a relatively youthful 32.

Like Martin, Brown set his sights on the top job. Like Martin, his path was blocked by a more voter-friendly, charismatic rival. In Brown's case, Tony Blair.

To complicate the plot further, Brown and Blair started out as close colleagues, sharing a House of Commons office, almost friends.

Brown was the more experienced politician, the man who took on the role of elder brother, teaching the somewhat callow Blair the political tricks.

Electoral fate steps in

Then, the leader of their party, the Labour party, died unexpectedly with power in sight.

Labour had been in opposition for 15 years, the Conservative government was floundering, the next Labour leader would likely become prime minister. The choice was between the political brothers.

There was no leadership contest per se. What developed took place quietly, quickly, one evening over dinner in a restaurant. Blair and Brown faced each other over food, which we can assume they barely noticed, and worked out what came to be known in Britain as "the deal."

Blair would become leader because he could rake in the votes and already had the support of most of the party MPs. Brown would be his senior lieutenant and, on gaining power, the chancellor of the exchequer or minister of finance, with a guarantee that he, and he alone, would decide all the important economic questions.

The tandem

And thus it came to pass. Labour was elected in 1997. Blair became number one; Brown became number one and a half, a finance minister with almost prime ministerial power over the economy.

The tandem was powerful and politically unbeatable. Three election victories in a row. They towered over the landscape. And they came to loathe each other.

Over the course of their reign, each man would send out his advisers to brief journalists against the other.

There were reports of muffled explosions in the chancellor's office. This was Brown fuming and raging in anger against Blair, the man who had usurped Brown's rightful place.

At one point, one of Blair's people let it be known that Brown seemed psychologically damaged. The two men's offices were literally next door to each other on Downing St.

From time to time, Brown would storm into Blair's lair and hurl obscenities at the prime minister.

Ring any bells

Does any of this suggest parallels with a fraught decade in Canadian politics when a prime minister and his minister of finance were loathing, cursing and blaming each other, barely out of public view?

Brown, like Martin 3 1/2 years earlier, finally acceded to the job he had long sought after. Blair, weakened by his role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and harried by plots and threats of coups by Brown and his supporters, finally left office after 10 years.

Like Paul Martin, Gordon Brown took up his new role armed with a reputation for economic competence. He was, in his predecessor's memorable phrase, the "great clunking fist" who was going to flatten his Tory opponents with the rightness of his policies. He was bathed in sunny poll numbers. This was just a few months ago, in July 2007.

What could go wrong? Everything, seemingly.

In September, in the midst of the so-called subprime crisis, a British bank called Northern Rock suddenly tottered on the brink of insolvency. Panicked depositors lined up to take out their money, an event that dominated the television news. And Brown's government hesitated.

Within days the crisis was huge. The first British bank in 140 years might go under. In a panic the government eventually said it would guarantee all of the bank's deposits and loans.

When the dust settled, British taxpayers began to realize they could be on the hook for $60 billion. At a stroke, Brown's reputation for fearsome economic competence and prudence crumbled to dust.

Mr. and Mr. Dithers

Later on, as the banking crisis was still unfolding, Brown's advisers floated the idea of an early election.

For a two-week period towards the end of September, the British political class was in the grip of frenzied speculation. Then Brown backed off. He had never seriously thought of going to the polls, he said.

"Brown bottles it," the headlines blared. To bottle is to dither in British slang. Brown had joined Martin as another Mr. Dithers.

Disasters were now Brown's lot. In defiance of all the rules, a civil servant put the personal and banking details of half the population of the country on two CDs and handed them over to a courier to deliver to another branch of his ministry. The CDs disappeared.

After two weeks, the government owned up to the mess. The country's finance minister said it was a catastrophe, but maintained it wasn't his "Black Wednesday."

Black Wednesday was a dark day 15 years ago when the British pound collapsed and the British government spent billions vainly trying to prop it up. The government at the time was Conservative with a reputation for economic competence.

Black Wednesday destroyed that reputation. The finance minister was removed. The government never recovered.

On his own Black Wednesday, earlier this week, Brown stood in the House of Commons and apologized profusely for the lost data. The opposition leader ridiculed him and his government.

The great clunking fist merely flapped while the prime minister flailed. He resembled a harpooned whale. His backbenchers sat glumly while the opposition howled in glee.

The once sunny poll numbers now showed Brown and his party trailing well behind the opposition Conservatives.

In private, the prime minister sulked and withdrew to the safety of a small cabal of advisers. He had spent his life waiting to run affairs and now affairs were running him.

The past, the Canadian past of Paul Martin, was repeating itself in the Britain of Gordon Brown.