Leading article: Mr Brown must show leadership and vision

It is a familiar political cliché. When a troubled Prime Minister turns his attention abroad, his domestic problems get even worse. This week Gordon Brown embarks on an extensive tour of the United States. At home the opinion polls are getting bleaker, ministerial colleagues are bickering, the economy is worsening and the headlines in an increasingly hostile media are awful. But there are limits to the value of the cliché in this case. In truth, Mr Brown would be close to the edge of the precipice if he was in London, Washington or wherever.

The backdrop to the growing number of questions about the Prime Minister is the economic gloom. Mr Brown cannot be blamed for a global financial crisis, but his reaction to it is a pivotal test of leadership, especially given his decade in the Treasury. So far he has failed to show the necessary empathy with voters struggling to cope with rising fuel and food prices at a time of declining house prices, with the spectre of negative equity starting to loom large on the horizon. Understandably Mr Brown does not want to talk Britain into an avoidable recession, but his persistent mantra that this country is almost uniquely well placed to weather the storm makes him look dangerously out of touch with the daily experiences of voters.

In times of intense economic uncertainty there is an even greater need for a government to show a clear sense of direction. Instead in an attempt to please nearly everyone Mr Brown is in danger of pleasing no one. One day he is associated with initiatives aimed at reassuring the right wing newspapers. The next day he tries clumsily not to offend anyone in relation to his role when China stages the Olympics. The next he highlights the need to tackle child poverty while putting up taxes for some of the poorest earners.

Ministers and Labour MPs are uneasy, a symptom of the disarray and the third cause of the current crisis for Mr Brown. When ministers such as Ivan Lewis and Tessa Jowell raise questions about the direction of policy in public, or when reports surface about internal tensions – usually involving Ed Balls, Mr Brown's closest ally, – they are clear signs that a government is losing its sense of purpose. None of these factors are as bad as those that John Major faced as his party collapsed around him. Nor are the Conservatives in as strong a position as Labour was in the run up to the 1997 election. They too have many questions to answer about their policies. But Mr Brown must address the clearly identifiable causes of his political storm as a matter of urgency.

In terms of the current economic situation he is not conducting an academic seminar. He is leading the nation at a time of possibly seismic change and must show he is on the side of voters. More widely Mr Brown must give the government a greater coherence. He should scrap his foolish plans to extend the period suspects can be detained to 42 days and offer more help to those low earners who were victims of the misjudged tax rise. He should end his obsession with half-baked headline grabbing initiatives and call off his quest in search of Britishness, whatever that might be. Instead he should state clearly what he is in politics to achieve and then hang every policy around his objectives. Mr Brown's big goal is a more socially inclusive form of capitalism. He should spell this out and make sure that every member of his team is singing from the same hymn sheet.

In the 1990s Mr Brown turned around Labour's reputation as the party who could never be trusted to run the economy. Today, nine months into his premiership, he looks wounded. Some wounds are self-inflicted, others he could do little about. But if he is to recover, he needs to act fast to show genuine leadership in testing times for him personally and the nation as a whole.

Interesting? Click here to explore further