Embattled British Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched "Operation Fightback" Tuesday with a little bit of help from his wife Sarah, who urged the nation to love him as much as she does. Sarah, 45, seen increasingly as her husband's "secret weapon", hailed Brown as a "hero" but said her husband of nine years was "no saint."
"He's messy. He's noisy. He gets up at a terrible hour. But I know he wakes up every morning and goes to bed every evening thinking about the things that matter. I know he loves our country." "That's why I love him as much as I do. And that's what makes him the right man for Britain, too," she said, securing her husband a standing ovation even before he started his speech at Labour's annual party conference in Brighton.
The warm-up act worked. Gordon Brown, far from his tense, nail-biting self, roused delegates by vowing to fight, urging the Labour Party to "think big" to transform the country. "Dream not small dreams because they cannot change the world ... and never stop believing," he said in a speech seen as crucial to his own political survival and a turnround in the flagging fortunes of his ruling Labour Party.
With some eight months to go to the next general election, Brown knew he had to give the speech of a lifetime to defy critics who have branded him a "dead man walking" or fulfil Labour predictions that he will turn into a "political Lazarus." The problems afflicting Brown, just two-and-a-quarter years after he took over the reins from Tony Blair, are dire at home, but perhaps hard to understand abroad, where his expertise in handling the global economic crisis has won him plaudits.
Opinion polls go some way towards explaining that apparent contradiction: they consistently show that the British electorate never quite warmed to Brown's dour ways, after the glitter of the Blair years, and that it did not "forgive" the Labour Party for the fact that Brown gained power without passing an electoral test.
But more than that: The biggest problem facing the Labour Party is that, after 12 years in government, the country is ready for change, a mood confirmed in every opinion poll. The scandal over bankers' bonuses, monumental expenses fiddles by parliamentarians, the outcry over the release of the Lockerbie bomber and the spiralling death toll in Afghanistan have all conspired to dent Labour's image - and Brown has appeared unable to divert the blame.
"Many people are angered about the recession and the expenses scandal, are worried by the rising death toll from the war in Afghanistan, and they appear to want to punish the Labour government," said the Independent newspaper in a commentary. Brown's perceived dithering and indecision, coupled with a lack of charisma, have often made him the but of satirists.
The gradual erosion of respect allowed personal attacks on Brown to sink to a new low this week when prominent BBC TV talkshow interviewer Andrew Marr asked Brown whether he took medication to cope with the pressures of his job. Rumours about Brown's health, relating to his partial blindness from a rugby accident in his youth, had been circulating on a right-wing internet website which, however, admitted, it had no proof of the drug use.
Marr has refused to apologise for his question, but the Labour Party has lodged a formal complaint over his conduct with the BBC. With government ministers admitting openly to a "spirit of fatalism" and the party's "loss of the will to live," the difficulties of the challenges faced by Brown cannot be overstated. While Labour Party supporters hailed Brown's 60-minute discourse as his "best speech as leader" that would go a long way to restore his fortunes, critics were not so sure.
"Talk of a revival is fantasy," said Martin Kettle of the Guardian newspaper, which traditionally backs Labour. The view is shared by author and commentator Matthew d'Ancona, who believes that Brown has driven the Labour Party to the "edge of the abyss." "Next spring, he (Brown) will be soundly beaten, resign the leadership and head off to some grand new global role," d'Ancona predicted.