Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, has the fight of his life on his hands

GORDON BROWN is anything but idle these days. On February 22nd, extolling the merits of Britain to representatives of 250 big companies at a Global Investment Conference in London, he was the perfect economic statesman. Two days earlier, speaking to the party faithful in Coventry, he was a gloves-off political streetfighter as, in effect, he launched the Labour Party’s general-election campaign with the slogan “A future fair for all”. Whichever version is the real Mr Brown these days, the next couple of months (an election is due by June 3rd and expected on May 6th) will be testing ones.

In an interview with The Economist on February 22nd, Mr Brown touched on four main themes. The recent recession, he said, was “the first crisis of globalisation”, and required global solutions. The financial crisis of 2008-09 was “a huge turning point…The world has had to recognise its interdependence…” The question is whether the G20 will have sufficient momentum to deal with the outstanding problems, especially the regulation of global finance. On climate change, financial stability, nuclear weapons, terrorism, we need to be capable of “pushing for and delivering global solutions”. As to Europe’s role in this, the prime minister is concerned about its sluggish economic growth and ageing population. “Europe’s got to get a growth strategy,” he says. …