Boost for Brown faces recession test

By Adrian Croft - Analysis

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown has won acclaim for leading the international response to the financial crisis but his newly won popularity with voters could be severely tested by a looming recession.

Brown casts himself as following in the footsteps of British and U.S. wartime leaders Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt in demanding action to tackle a financial crisis that brought the world's banking system to the verge of collapse.

After months of patchwork, ineffective efforts to halt a disastrous slide in confidence in financial markets, elements of Brown's multi-billion-dollar plan have been copied by the United States and Europe, holding out hope of stopping the rot.

"Mr. Brown and (Chancellor) Alistair Darling have defined the character of the worldwide rescue effort, with other wealthy nations playing catch-up," Nobel prize-winning U.S. economist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times.

French daily Le Monde referred to Brown, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, as "the magician," underlining the irony of the former champion of globalisation and market deregulation "giving lessons on interventionism to the continentals."

At a briefing for foreign media on Tuesday, Brown was bombarded with questions about how it felt to be a hero.

Asked by a Swedish reporter whether he was "Flash Gordon," after a science fiction comic-strip hero, or just Gordon, Brown smiled and said: "Just Gordon, just Gordon, I can assure you."

His words echoed a Labour Party slogan from 2007.