Not the way that Brown wants to go down in history

Rather a put down for the Prime Minister in this week's Spectator from James Forsyth.

He writes that following Gordon Brown's visit to Washington

Gordon Brown has absurdly high expectations of the political boost he will get from this week’s trip to Washington and the G20 summit in London next month, says James Forsyth. It is David Cameron who stands to be the likely beneficiary of the special relationship

Brown he says will

not go down in the history books alongside the other prime ministers who have had the honour of addressing a joint session of the US Congress — Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair — but as one who oversaw the worst recession in postwar British history and never even won an election.

A point reiterated in the Guardian this morning by Martin Kettle who says that

The reality is that very few speeches change the political weather. When they do, it is often because they define someone who was until then an unknown quantity. It is far harder for an already deeply familiar figure like Brown to recast his reputation overnight.