The riddle of Gordon Brown

摘要

"Say what you like about Boris Yeltsin," said one pithy obi- tuarist of Russia's mercurial president, "and you're probably right." Say what you like about Gordon Brown, it seems, and you'll eventually be right too. He is a tin-eared, cack-handed no-hoper, the anti-Midas of politics; but also, now, an economic seer, globalisation's therapist, lionised by the European media, saluted by leaders who once disdained him and hailed by the new Nobel economics laureate as the man who may have saved the world financial system. If Hollywood ever makes a film about the crash of 2008, Mr Brown may be the reviled but ultimately vindicated nerdy hero (played by Tom Hanks).