The British prime minister, Gordon Brown, has burnt his fingers in a fire which had no reason to be lit. His party had a good working majority in parliament, opinion polls showed that people still had no reason to complain about his replacement of Tony Blair and there was no immediate issue to drag Labour to the hustings. Yet Mr Brown and his party not only assiduously built up the tempo for a snap polls but also, and more damagingly, scotched all expectations of the autumn elections by suddenly withdrawing from the fray. The decision, announced informally by the prime minister in an interview with a mediaperson, came almost immediately after an opinion poll predicted a Tory lead. This, in turn, had followed a successful Tory convention that put forward an innovative, and what later turned out to be extremely popular, proposal of tax cuts. The unceremonious backing out by Mr Brown a little later has, naturally, invited a lot of name-calling — from ‘bottler’ to ‘political coward’ — from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Mr Brown has defended his decision by trying to suggest that he never considered the elections seriously and by drawing attention to his rather long-term goal of realizing his grand ‘vision’ for the country. But the arguments are unlikely to convince either his political adversaries or the public. For one, the evidence that the Labour had got its electoral machinery working with a specific plan in mind is too overwhelming. No matter what reservations Mr Brown might have had about going ahead with the premature polls, the fact that he allowed himself to be swayed by his junior’s ideas of how the opposition could be negated suggests that he underestimates both his opponents’ strength and the political understanding of the electorate. Coming in a post-Blair Britain, which puts so much premium on forthrightness and trust, the vacillation and not-too-transparent sayings of Mr Brown have done a more serious damage to his public standing than he or his party would want to admit. It is unclear how a man as astute as Mr Brown could have got his calculations so horribly wrong. Perhaps the lure of finding out how much of public affection he has managed to win over from Mr Blair forced on him such unreason. Mr Brown should concentrate on his strengths — sound economic judgment and tough leadership — to snatch victory from the mouth of defeat whenever the next polls are held.