This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal and can be found online here - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704188104575083492418736822.html

The Politics of Personality in Britain

As a rule I hate personality politics. It is almost always nasty, and invariably leaves a sour taste. But there is no doubt the character of the various political leaders will form a large part of the judgment exercised by the British people in the general election. The revelations of the last week about Gordon Brown's character have made this even worse.

There is a good reason for the British instincts in this. The personality of our prime minister is more important to the country than any other Western head of government. Constitutionally, the prime minister has enormous power. But through a quirk of British history, this power is exercised through machinery that is positively rickety.

The prime minister's support staff can be crammed into the small townhouse that is 10 Downing Street. The "powerhouse" that runs our government largely consists of a small crowd of civil servants sitting at desks crammed into two offices that adjoin the cabinet room.

As a result of this almost amateurish setup, the authority and personality of the prime minister is the single most important influence on the effectiveness of the government. So, under Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, Whitehall worked well. We may not like what it delivered, but at least it did deliver. Prime ministers whose authority becomes damaged lose their grip. It happened to John Major, and it is happening to Gordon Brown.

So I suspect the battle of the next few months will be nominally about policy, but actually about character. Now, l do not believe that one personality is intrinsically better than another. There is much to admire in both David Cameron and Gordon Brown. Indeed I remember how I felt for each of them, and admired their dignity and courage, when they both lost children in the full glare of public scrutiny. Nor do I blame Mr. Brown for talking about his loss. Regrettably that is inevitable in today's intrusive media world. The question is not about some innate virtue. It is about who is best fitted to fill the most important office in the land.

Nor was even this narrow question always obvious. When Brown took over, I was in the Shadow Cabinet. I thought at that time that there was an appetite among the British people after a decade of Blairite spin, for a leadership with high policy, high gravitas, and low spin, and I feared that Brown might present himself in that light, which would have made him a formidable PM. Indeed, for three months it looked like exactly that was happening.

Then, as we all know, normal service was resumed. What has happened since to expose Gordon Brown's character will determine the outcome of the next election. More than the slump, more than the 13 wasted years, the character of the prime minister will determine how people vote.

Now, I suspect that the accusations of bullying are overblown. The demands of No. 10 are ferocious on all who work there. The consequences of error are enormous for the country as a whole. So perfectionism is a job requirement.

Equally necessary is the need to work calmly under enormous pressure, as is the confidence to delegate effectively, and the ability to withdraw from the details and focus on the bigger picture. This is where the recent revelations show the most worrying weakness. So while the allegations of bullying are probably wrong, the suspicions of inadequacy are not.

We should remember that we do not make these judgments alone. Our international allies make them, and decide whether they can rely on us as a result. This has a direct impact on our national interest. For example, a recent book about Gordon Brown told us how he lost his temper at an official banquet over seating arrangements. That a prime minister should sulk through such an event and stalk out early over such a triviality is scarcely believable. It cannot have impressed our American allies, a view that would have been reinforced by his behavior demanding meetings with the U.S. president at a recent Washington conference.

It is also a necessary quality of a prime minister that he be a leader, a man whom people will follow through adversity and trouble. This means he has to be able to inspire loyalty. That means he has to reciprocate loyalty, and deal fairly with his supporters. He certainly cannot rely on "fear of the Brown machine," which many Labour MPs tell us has been a characteristic of the last decade.

The book "Inside Out" tells how Mr. Brown was willing to sacrifice its author, Peter Watt, to possible prosecution over "donorgate." This appears to have been a concerted character assassination designed purely to save the prime minister's own skin, and for the government to save face. This cowardly treatment is hardly a characteristic that people would look for in a leader.

The fact that any number of people have been willing to write or brief against him reinforces that view. Even one of Brown's closest allies in the house, Douglas Alexander, has said he doesn't actually like him and feared that "the longer the British public had to get to know him, the less they would like him as well." The ferocious rages, the sullen sulks, the disorganization, the inability to hold the loyalty of his staff, all tell us what Alistair Campbell meant when he called him "psychologically flawed."

When political parties are fighting over the center ground, as they will be in this election, the ideological distinctions between them become blurred in the public eye. That inevitably leads the electorate to make their judgment on personality more than policy. They also know we face tough times, a period of crisis, pressure, and vital decisions. They will be looking for courage, conviction, and character.

In many walks of life, Gordon Brown would be a towering figure. In the role of prime minister he is simply inadequate, and what I am hearing on the streets of Britain tells me the British people know it.