Scripps Howard News Service
An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Scripps Howard News Service
The British have their own way of doing things. Without a vote of the people or his party, Gordon Brown became their prime minister and, unless he chooses otherwise, doesn't have to face the electorate until June 2010.
For 10 years, he was No. 2 to Tony Blair, almost visibly squirming in his eagerness to replace Blair, who had promised to step down at an unspecified date. Blair stayed on for 10 years and three elections.
Blair left office to a standing ovation from both Conservatives, who were regularly infuriated by his personal charm and political skills, and his own Labor Party colleagues, who were dismayed by his friendship with President Bush and his support for the Iraq war.
Even though Brown has been the heir apparent for a decade, it seems something of a mystery how he'll perform as prime minister. Much of the coverage so far has focused on the dour Scot's personal style. The Economist described him in the course of a single essay as grumpy, gloomy, grudge-bearing, a control freak -- and this is from a magazine disposed to like him.
Brown quickly installed his own team in the Cabinet, surprising some by elevating a junior minister, David Miliband, only 41, to the senior post of foreign secretary.
The rival Conservative Party does not appear yet as a serious electoral threat, and Brown's problems are likely to come from within his own party, where some still pine for the days of the party's suffocating socialism.
He seems well disposed toward the United States -- he seems to have none of the reflexive anti-U.S. bias of the British left -- but is likely to keep some distance between himself and Bush, who is terribly unpopular with the British public.
Brown will not lack for challenges. Indeed, they will come looking for him. On his third day as prime minister, police defused a massive car bomb near Piccadilly Circus that had the potential to kill hundreds. Welcome to the job.
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