Two days ago Gordon Brown did something unexpected. Britain's embattled prime minister spent the last month presiding over a lackluster Labour election campaign, culminating in the epic gaffe of being overheard insulting a senior. His party had fallen from a merely dismal second place in the polls to facing electoral humiliation in third. And then, with four days to go, and just as the obituaries were being polished and the recriminations were creeping out in public, Brown gave a genuinely brilliant speech.
On Monday all three party leaders spoke at a conference organized by CitizensUK, a group of faith-based community organizers. Brown came last, following competent performances by Tory leader David Cameron and the Liberal Democrat's Nick Clegg, Britain's newest political phenomenon. Brown had lost all three of the campaign's televised election debates -- the first time Britain had held such contests, and which hugely boosted the previously unknown Clegg. Add in a well-deserved reputation for wooden oratory, and the odds were that Brown would again trail in with bronze. But he didn't. In fact, he blew them away.
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