Gordon Brown and The Labour Party, How did the talent get lost?

As I sit here typing this my first post for my new blog at 10:42 hrs am UK time on the 5th of June 2009, watching the live feed on the BBC news website of the morning events in Westminster - pertaining to the cabinet reshuffle, resignations and Gordon Browns fight for survival (as the BBC news team phrase it), I'm led to wonder where did it go wrong for Gordon Brown, here are my thoughts.

Before Brown came to power, during the power struggle with Blair, which was seemingly brutal at times, there was I feel a great mood of optimism among the UK populace with regards to the idea of Brown taking over or becoming the leader of our country. This was due to the majority of peoples excellent opinion of Gordon Browns standing, due in part to 5 years of sustained economic growth, under his guardianship of the exchequer (the very same period of growth which was later rightly or wrongly attacked as a contributing factor in the recession and econimic woes of our country ) and indeed his projected image of calm controlled patrician almost but not wuite an eminence grise and in many ways more serious and capable abilitys as a politician, as oppose to the more charismatic and (forgive the lacklustre choice of coming word) fun leadership of Blair.

We saw Brown as a much more serious and capable politician with a proven track record to back his standing and the general mood was of excitement at the prospect of his leadership as issues such as the Iraq war and subsequent scandal tainted Tony Blairs reasonable good standing. However when Brown finally took the reins the people of Britain found that the very traits which we criticisezd in Blair i.e. his lack of credibility and overly charismatic approach and indeed "fun" leadership were the very things which we missed and realized in part we needed from our leader .

After Gordon Browns complete bungling of the situation we had where he was going to schedule and early election or not or will or not, things obviously took a slightly downwards slant and the mood of great optimism was quashed, and to be overly kind to GB certain following events and scandals would have happened to any politician as leader, however his lack of basic interaction skills saw to his never ending slide to un-popularity.

I have no doubt in my mind that Gordon Brown is a most capable, credible and integrity full politician, however he has proved most resolutely that he was never a man for leadership as I beleive that in order to be not just a leader of nations but a good leader of nations you need that mix of credibility, substance and charisma, you can have one or the others but if any are lacking then so your tenure as leader will be lacking in potential. I'm not a Labour voter or labour orientated person and yet I have to acknowledge the passion and integrity of Gordon Brown, yes he has been a pretty awful some may even say terrible Prime Minister, but he has always had the belief and passion and respect for our country something which Is seemingly lacking in other prominent spin-controlled shallow politicians. Whether or not Brown survives as PM on this day of European Elections, scandal and strife I simply do not know but whether he goes now or holds out for a while longer, I will be VERY VERY pleased when he goes and very much in respect of him as a person and politician, a contradicition in terms, but then again when was anything in Politics ever been anything but, a "Contradiction in terms......................