A crisis without a hero

A crisis presents politicians with an opportunity. But no politician on either side of the Atlantic has seized the one presented by the current financial turbulence.

Gordon Brown is benefitting not from anything he has said or done but because he is ‘experienced’ and voters think that because he was Chancellor he must know the way home from here. David Cameron and George Osborne have made the right noises  and struck the right tone. But as opposition politicians they are limited in what they can do. They also have not been ahead of the curve on this.

In the US, Bush’s leadership has been pitiful, Hank Paulson has been politically tone-deaf and Nancy Pelosi’s partisan speech just before the vote was spectacularly ill-judged. Of the presidential candidates, Obama has fared better than McCain who has been all over the lot on this. Obama’s demeanour has been presidential but he has not projected command of the situation or the detail.