UK:A DEFIANT Gordon Brown has insisted he will not be toppled by internal plots and again vowed to lead Labour into the next election, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
On the eve of his party's Manchester conference, the prime minister warned Labour MPs this was "not the time for faint hearts" and that he would ultimately face the judgment of the electorate.
Mr Brown will make only his second speech as Labour leader on Tuesday, although many suspect it could be his last if the promised fightback fails to shift Labour's standing in the polls ahead of a critically important byelection in Scotland expected in early November.
The calculation of Labour loyalists is that the crisis in the international markets plays to the prime minister's advantage and deters those tempted to join calls for a leadership contest.
Much could turn on Mr Brown's speech, although he is not a great performer and is widely seen to have failed to engage the British people. But after 10 years as chancellor and more than a year in 10 Downing Street, even some allies question if he can reinvent himself again.
"Not flash, just Gordon . . . same old Brown stuff." That was one suggested Tory response to the "new" prime minister's makeover ahead of last year's conference.
It is hard now, some might think almost cruel, to recall the enthusiastic reviews inspired by that first conference speech as leader. Here was a man in hurry - to bury the last memories of Tony Blair, and the Conservative leadership of David Cameron.
He was certainly many things to many different people as he raided the Tory closet in a naked appeal to the conservative instincts of middle Britain: Churchillian and patriotic, wrapped in the Union flag, proclaiming his Britishness.
A modest man, too, the son of the manse and self-described conviction politician driven by that famous moral compass: "Sometimes people say I am too serious and I fight too hard and maybe that's true," he confided. But no matter if there were few laughs: he would always stand up for "a strong Britain" and her people. "I will never let you down," he told them, promising "British jobs for British people" and the expulsion of "any newcomer . . . caught selling drugs or using guns".
Many in the hall winced, but we quickly discovered this was all part of a cunning plan to force Cameron off the centre-ground of politics.
Indeed, for all his modesty, we also rediscovered Brown the man of towering ambition and self-belief. As his allies talked up the prospect of a "snap" election, we were encouraged to see any bold bid for a personal mandate in the context of his strategic brilliance: he not only wanted to win but to win big enough to decapitate Cameron, split the Conservatives and establish Labour as the party of government for another generation.
There was more than a hint of hubris about all this at the time. But now? Brown compounded the damage of the election-that-never-was by suggesting his decision had nothing to do with Labour's suddenly shrinking poll lead. The evidence - Ipsos MORI this week put the Conservatives 28 points ahead - is that nobody has been listening to him much ever since.
The prime minister may not have been personally responsible for the scandal of the lost data and every other misfortune his government has experienced in the past year, but his personal reputation for competence had been shredded long before the 10p tax fiasco hit millions of Britain's lowest-paid and contributed to Labour's hammering in the Crewe and Nantwich byelection. And that was before the economic downturn began to bite.
Often hailed as Britain's most successful chancellor, Brown the prime minister paraded his achievements last year, praising the strength and stability of the British economy that had helped it weather "a recent wave of financial turbulence". Presumably he won't deploy the same words next week as he presents himself as the only man to lead Britain through troubled times and to meet the challenges of inflation and recession, shrinking shares, fast-falling property prices and predictions that unemployment (at its highest since 1999) is headed towards the two million mark.
People don't need to understand the complexities of international markets to see a man who claimed the credit during the good times now blames global conditions for everything turning sour.
There is a terrible, telling simplicity to the Conservative charge that Brown spent all the money and failed to fix the roof in anticipation of a rainy day. In the language of these times, indeed, he is to many as portrayed by Jeff Randall in yesterday's Daily Telegraph: "the subprime minister" who led his country "beyond boom and into bust".
Mercifully, the economy will recover in time. But Brown may have less of that precious commodity than he needs.