A good day at the office for Gordon Brown

By David Higgerson on Mar 6, 10 08:13 PM

You could almost sense the disappointment among the media who had assembled outside the Chilcott Inquiry yesterday.

Not only did Gordon Brown perform well in front of the panel, he seemed, at the end, to have enjoyed the experience.

For a man who seems to have walked from one cock up to another in the years in which he has been prime minister, perhaps it is unsurprising that a chance to go over his time as chancellor would play to his favour.

Regardless of where you stand on his handling of the economy in general - and the jury surely is still out on how much of the current economic crisis is down to his decisions compared to America's triggering of a global meltdown - there's no doubt Brown was a stickler for detail.

He was on top of the numbers throughout the session, in a way which Tony Blair wasn't. When it came to detail, Brown was anything buy vague. No wooly words around the issue of defence budgets - he was adamant that when the money had been sought by the army, it had been delivered.

The almost-live coverage on Sky News, the BBC News Channel and Five Live may have passed many people by. The fact it was on a Friday probably means his performance will get less exposure to the public at large on the evening news programmes than it would have done on other days.

But for anyone who saw it, it was a stark reminder of why there was a Brown bounce when he arrived at Number 10. He was solid, not slick - more accountant than salesman. He is everything, in public at least, that Tony Blair wasn't, and that's what the public wanted at the time.

Of course, times change and Brown has lurched from one crisis to another, surrounded by people seemingly incapable of getting the best image of their man out to the public at large.

That said, yesterday also showed that maybe, just maybe, Brown and his team are getting better at avoiding obvious gaffes. He entered the conference centre via the front door yesterday, in sight of those who were there to protest. Nobody could accuse him of hiding from them.

He spent time at lunchtime meeting the families of those soldiers who had died in Iraq. Nobody could accuse him of shunning them, as they did of Blair. Crucially, and unlike Blair (and champion spinner David Cameron), there was no publicity stunt around this. It was just done, and then mentioned to the media later.

Brown was also at pains to express remorse for the deaths of soldiers killed in Iraq. He made the point twice.

Admittedly, Brown and his people had Blair's appearance at the inquiry to look at, and they avoided the bear-traps Blair had fallen into. And maybe that's where Labour needs to keep working ahead of May's election. Perhaps they need to ask themselves 'What would Blair do?' and then make sure they don't do the same.

In many ways, such as political style, Cameron is the heir to Blair. Some Tories think that will win them votes, but, especially after this inquiry, the Blair brand remains tarnished. Ironically, with Cameron committed to a political strategy which puts style over substance, it may be easier for Brown to distance himself from Blair than previouslt expected.