Brown looks staid compared with French counterpart

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Associated Press

Posted online: Sunday , January 27, 2008 at 04:03:39
Updated: Sunday , January 27, 2008 at 04:20:15

London, January 27: In his first seven months as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown seems to have reinforced the stereotype of the dour Scot -- dark suits, stiffness and statistics-crunching economics. His recent visit to India and China did little to dispel that impression.

Compared with France's flamboyant, sharp-tongued President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his current girlfriend, the singer-model Carla Bruni, the staid, happily married Brown seems to lack a certain je ne sais quoi -- for the headline-writers, at least.

Since Brown took over from Tony Blair, reporters have trailed him around the world hoping to see him break out of his previous mold as treasury chief and make the transition from a numbers man to a man of the people. But as he toured Beijing's National Olympic Stadium and laid a wreath at Mahatma Gandhi's memorial in New Delhi, little seemed to have changed.

His speech in the nondescript basement of a New Delhi hotel to business leaders about reform of international institutions to make them more representative of the world today was a worthy, but dry, affair that did little to spice up the trip.

Reporters, on the same sleep-deprived schedule as the Prime Minister, struggled to spot an immediate angle.

Even when a major domestic story on the future of collapsed mortgage lender Northern Rock broke during the trip, it was up to entrepreneur Richard Branson -- who was among the business delegation traveling with Brown and whose Virgin Group is the leading bidder for the bank -- to come to the rescue with snappy quotes and some personality.

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