BRITAIN:Gordon Brown came out battling to restore his authority and prestige yesterday from under a deluge of newspaper headlines and editorials proclaiming a personal and political crisis largely considered of his own making.
"He's in the Brown stuff" announced the Sun in a front-page splash which one media expert described as particularly "effective". An editorial stated: "Mr Brown has been badly damaged by his decision to rule out an early election. He only has himself to blame."
Like the Sunand most others papers, the Guardianagreed Mr Brown has time to pull the odds back in his favour.
But it was dismissive of his explanations for calling off the election: "Like a child squirming after being caught over some transgression, the prime minister offered every excuse apart from the obvious truth: that he had wanted and planned for an election and the mandate that would follow it, but that the outcome became uncertain, the late autumn timing unfortunate and the opposition boosted by promises of tax cuts that he had not expected."
Having said it was "very unlikely" there would be an election next year, the Times said Mr Brown "should nail down that statement so hard that none of his acolytes can pull it up again if opinion polls edge back in Labour's favour." "To play the Grand Old Duke of York once is survivable. To re-enact the role twice would be farcical and fatal."