LONDON, May 11 (Reuters) - Britain's Gordon Brown bowed to the inevitable on Tuesday and stepped down as prime minister after accepting his Labour party could not form a government following last week's inconclusive election.
Brown defied the odds to stay on as prime minister for five days after the most closely fought election in decades ended with the opposition Conservatives winning most seats but no overall majority.
On Monday Brown said he would step down as Labour leader in a last-ditch attempt to strike a deal with the third-placed Liberal Democrats that would keep Labour in power.
But on Tuesday he accepted that would not be possible.
Commentators had been polishing Brown’s political obituary for years but the 59-year old Scot repeatedly refused to be written off. Time and time again, the clergyman’s son surprised his critics with his doggedness.
"The most important thing in one’s life is to be determined when bad things happen to you, and not to let events beat you," Brown once told Reuters, referring to a sporting injury when he was 16 that cost him an eye and nearly made him completely blind.
Much older than his rivals and lacking their easy charm, Brown was widely judged to have come last in each of the three televised debates between the leaders of the three main parties during the election campaign.
"Bigotgate" made people only more certain that he was doomed. The prime minister was caught on an open microphone during the campaign complaining to aides that a pensioner he just met was "a bigoted woman".
Informed of his mistake, he rushed to the woman’s house to apologise. But the damage was done and the next day’s newspapers mostly showed Brown with his head in his hands looking utterly spent.
BOOM AND BUST
Finance minister for a decade before succeeding Tony Blair in June 2007, Brown was long lauded for skilful management of the economy. His masterstroke was Bank of England independence in 1997 and it was also his decision to not join the euro.
That reputation took a body blow as Britain suffered its worst recession since World War Two, finally putting paid to his once oft-repeated promise of ending boom and bust.
For a long time, he must have rued his decision not to call an election in October 2007 before the crisis really hit, when he was 10 points ahead in the polls.
Brown, a serious, sometimes brooding figure, then saw his popularity plummet. By mid-2008, ministers were testing the waters to see if he could be toppled.
But just as the global financial system was staring into the abyss in the autumn of 2008, Brown came up with his plan to recapitalise the banks. It was soon followed around the world.
Then came the London summit in April 2009. Brown got a standing ovation from his fellow G20 leaders for brokering a trillion-dollar lifeline for the crisis-hit global economy.
Any political capital vanished on news one of his closest aides had sent emails smearing opposition politicians, followed by an expenses scandal that tarnished all the main parties.
Perhaps the darkest hour of Brown’s premiership came in June 2009 when support for Labour plunged to its lowest level in a century in European elections and cabinet minister James Purnell resigned, calling Brown an electoral liability.
Brown survived but was weakened further, and was unable to move his protege education minister Ed Balls to replace Alistair Darling at the Treasury.
BROWN SUGARS
Brown had once wanted to be footballer. But at 16, a sporting injury put him in hospital for months and he now has a glass eye. Sight in his remaining eye is bad.
He threw himself into left-wing politics at Edinburgh University, his beliefs shaped by the poverty he saw growing up in Kirkcaldy, a Scottish town with a failing linoleum industry and which he now represents as a member of parliament.
The Brown Sugars, mini-skirted female fans, cheered him to his first election victory as a university official in the 1970s.
Brown himself conceded his presentational skills could be improved but believed that people would in the end respect his judgments about the big issues.
"I loved the job, not for its prestige and its titles and its ceremony — which I do not love at all," he said in his resignation speech. "No, I loved the job for its potential to make this country I love fairer, more tolerant, more green, more prosperous and more just — truly a greater Britain."
His voice cracking, Brown thanked his wife Sarah, who is widely credited with having softened his dour image. The nation mourned with them when their daughter, Jennifer Jane, died 10 days after her premature birth in 2001.
"I want to thank Sarah for her unwavering support as well as her love, and for her own service to our country," he said.
Fiercely protective of the privacy of his sons, Brown brought the two boys out of the front door of No. 10 in front of the media for the first time following his resignation announcement.
"I thank my sons John and Fraser for the love and joy they bring to our lives, and as I leave the second most important job I can ever hold, I cherish even more the first, as a husband and father. Thank you and goodbye."
