UNITED KINGDOM:Britain's prime minister survived poll disasters to recall an old enemy and play a lead role in tackling the bank crisis, writes Frank Millar
DRAW UP a list of British political awards for 2008 and Gordon Brown qualifies as an entrant for almost any category.
Loser of the Year - or Winner?
Least inspiring politician, or
surprise performer?
Yesterday's man, or man to
watch?
Many - not least in the ranks of previously mutinous Labour MPs - are astounded to find that this last remains an open question.
And many more across the party divide will at least agree Brown has emerged as the year's Great Survivor.
Who would have thought it? That Brown - from fallen hero to object of ridicule, "Stalin to Mr Bean" - could be reinvented in response to global economic catastrophe first as Churchill, and then Roosevelt, before being cast as a modern Moses by New Labour's very own Prince of Darkness?
Or that he would prove a competitor for departed Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in "the most devious, most cunning" stakes by staking his prospects for general election victory on the return to cabinet of the twice-resigned Peter Mandelson?
The award for Least Successful Plotter belongs to former home secretary Charles Clarke.
"Gordon must stop being a ditherer. He lacks courage," Clarke declared in February. Not even his admirers could deny that the man who plotted so long to succeed Tony Blair had proven painfully risk-averse.
Yet Brown shed that reputation and stunned Westminster with an October reshuffle dominated by the recall from Europe of the man he had never forgiven for backing Blair over him in the original race to succeed the late John Smith as Labour leader.
Even before the new business secretary was installed in the Upper House, many pundits were salivating at the possibility of a third forced resignation for the new Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham. Others could only admire, however, as a ruthless Brown moved to kill off any lingering threat of a Blairite rebellion and establish beyond question that he would lead Labour into the next election.
That had seemed far from assured for most of the year as David Cameron's Conservatives routinely registered leads of more than 20 points in the polls, while real election results suggested Britain's love affair with Labour was over and "time for a change" became the conventional wisdom.
May's local elections in England and Wales delivered Labour's worst performance for 40 years, with the governing party taking just 24 per cent of the votes and a humiliating third place behind Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats.
By delicious irony Brown was left depending on another old adversary, Ken Livingstone, to take the gloss off the Cameron advance. But it was not to be. Just before the midnight hour on May 2nd, Boris Johnston was declared London's new mayor, ensuring a debilitating wave of fresh headlines proclaiming a "Bloodbath for Brown" on Labour's "Black Friday".
Predictions of Labour bloodletting grew when the Conservatives overturned the late Gwyneth Dunwoody's 7,000 majority to win the Crewe and Nantwich byelection on a 17.6 per cent swing.
And even Brown loyalists began to admit their doubts in July when Alex Salmond's SNP produced "a political earthquake" to win Glasgow East - Labour's second safest seat in Scotland - on a swing of 22.54 per cent.
If "Irn Broon" couldn't even win votes in Scotland, what was the point of him? Informed reports suggested a number of cabinet heavyweights were grappling with that question when foreign secretary David Miliband stepped forward with a prescription for ending the fatalism enveloping Labour - in a speech conspicuously omitting any reference to Brown.
While maintaining that he of course believed Brown "could" win the next election, Miliband steadfastly refused to rule out his own leadership bid.
Brown, however, proved fortunate with his enemies. Would-be rebels fretted that perhaps he should be given a last chance to prove himself at the September conference. Maybe the Glenrothes byelection in November would mark the decisive moment. Or, then again, perhaps they should await the local and European elections in 2010?
The rest, as they might say, is extraordinary history really. Brown - despite boasting he had abolished boom and bust - seemed reborn in the midst of the global downturn, saving the banks from collapse and presuming to lead the world in spending its way out of the recession, while casting the Conservatives as the "do nothing party".
Cameron has courageously staked all on fiscal conservatism, trusting the electorate not to saddle a future generation with a projected trillion pound debt.
But, as Michael Portillo has observed, this suggests the next campaign could be a re-run of the last two - with the Conservatives on the back foot, under pressure to say where the "cuts" will fall.
In their fear and uncertainty, might the voters buy the same package from Brown a third time? That's the question haunting Cameron as the prime minister again contemplates the possibility of an early poll.