War time leadership

Incidentally, as Gordon Brown retreats into the bunker and attempts to don the mantel of a ‘war leader’, do you think he’s read his history?  Because war-time Prime Ministers tend not to survive the wars they start.

H.H. Asquith was gone by 1916, Neville Chamberlain by 1940, Pitt literally failed to survive the Napoleonic wars, Eden was felled by Suez and Atlee went before the end of the Korean war.  Aberdeen was finished by the Crimean War, Palmerston by the after-effects of the Indian Mutiny, Balfour by the Boer War.

They aren't exactly promising precedents for the Gord are they?   In fact there’s only really one precedent that looks at all cheerful, and I’m not sure he’d like it…