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'Superhero' Brown to the rescue?

Updated on 15 October 2008

By Channel 4 News

The greatest compliment may be copying, but Gordon Brown's stock is rising in the international media as well.

EU Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso praised the British Prime Minister this morning for acting "as an impetus" for the collective bailout, but his remarks are already echoed across the continent's press.

Paul Krugman, awarded the Nobel prize for economics this week, wrote in the New York Times: "Has Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saved the world financial system?"

He acknowledges the question is "premature", but says that Brown and Alistair Darling have "defined the character of the worldwide rescue effort, with other wealthy nations playing catch-up."

"The Brown government has shown itself willing to think clearly about the financial crisis, and act quickly on its conclusions. And this combination of clarity and decisiveness hasn't been matched by any other Western government, least of all our own," he writes.


"It strikes me there has been a mistake in the choice of Nobel laureates this year...in this time of crisis, might I suggest another candidate: Gordon Brown."
French newspaper, Liberation

Krugman may be less impressed with the praise of Brown in the French newspaper, Liberation.

"It strikes me there has been a mistake in the choice of Nobel laureates this year," wrote one columnist. "As you know, the American economist and polemicist Paul Krugman scooped the prize (reward: 1 million euros). But in this time of crisis, might I suggest another candidate: Gordon Brown."

Another french newspaper, Le Monde, called him a "magician", saying that he was "giving lessons on interventionism" to his continental counterparts.

And in Germany, Spiegel also gave the prime minister the credit, saying: "the European leaders broadly agreed to follow a plan launched by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week to buy up big stakes in troubled banks, and to guarantee interbank lending."

But the praise plaudits go to Sweden. At a press conference for foreign journalists in London this week, a Swedish reporter ask if he was "Flash Gordon". Brown replied with a smile saying "just Gordon, I can assure you".

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