Just Call Him Flash?

By: Christine Lagorio
Topics: Hot Links

Earlier today, Mark Phillips, a CBS News correspondent based in London, sent in to CBSNews.com a rather clever story about the much-changed reputation of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Check out a snippet below, or read the full story right here.

The question came from a Swedish reporter in the back of the room. "Would you like to be called Flash Gordon Brown now, or just Gordon?"

"Just Gordon," said Brown.

This exchange took place as the British Prime Minister was taking questions from foreign reporters at a meeting in London a day after his government had poured $63 billion into buying bank shares and his partial-nationalization scheme was being credited with finally stopping the decline of world markets.

Brown, who just a week earlier had been fighting for his political life as he'd watched his poll numbers plummet for a year, is now having to adjust to his new status as The Man With The Answer. His template for addressing the worldwide market meltdown is now being adopted from Paris to Potsdam, Beijing to Brooklyn. "You have to act quickly and decisively," Brown says. And you can't just add liquidity to the banks. You have to inject enough money so that you instill confidence in the institution and have influence in how it behaves.