Grimness becomes Gordon Brown, as the world is beginning to realize somewhat to its surprise. Britain had just about begun to write off its prime minister, and so had his own party. Less than six months ago, things were beginning to look bad for Mr Brown. Plummeting opinion polls, an increasingly upbeat Opposition, and lost by-elections had driven people to the point of missing what they had grown to dislike heartily, Tony Blair’s smile. But it is precisely the solid gloominess of Mr Brown that makes him now appear so confidently in his elements in a world full of gloom. Emerging as the dark knight of the global financial crisis, Mr Brown is now being compared to Winston Churchill by his previously sceptical or bored European peers, as a leader capable of reinventing himself in the midst of a crisis (though winning the war did not save Churchill from losing elections). But, as Mr Brown put it at the recent Labour Party conference, “this is no time for a novice”. His ten years as chancellor of the exchequer have now possibly put him in a unique position among Western leaders to turn the tide of the world’s financial system — and that of his own career.

But only possibly. Although Europe and the United States of America seem to have sat up to the viability of Mr Brown’s rescue plan, the banks at home are not making it easy for him to ensure the conditions he had set them. They have warned him that they would not pass interest rate cuts on to customers. Moreover, the European Union has said that the recession would hit Britain harder than any other country in Europe. Mr Brown and his men seem to have got some of the Saudi rulers to see the point of reviving the International Monetary Fund with the latter’s oil riches. But would these rulers be persuaded to channel their benevolence through the IMF, when directly bailing out countries like Pakistan would be of greater political advantage? Besides, the Arab states may not wish to be used as the West’s “cash cow”. So, Mr Brown’s trip to the Gulf, as his business secretary remarked, is more of a “process” than an “event”. A crucial test of Mr Brown’s leadership will be the Washington summit later this month, already being referred to as “Bretton Woods II”. Given what his predecessor used to look like in Washington, the world will perhaps take more comfort from a grim visage this time than from a smiling one.