The politics: What is happening to Gordon Brown�s reputation? Yesterday, Paul Krugman, the newly installed Nobel economics laureate, was penning a column for the New York Times lauding the Brown/Darling bank rescue plan.

What is happening to Gordon Brown's reputation?

Yesterday, Paul Krugman, the newly installed Nobel economics laureate, was penning a column for the New York Times lauding the Brown/Darling bank rescue plan as a "combination of clarity and decisiveness" which "hasn't been matched by any other Western government".

For a Prime Minister who has been roundly condemned as a "ditherer" and "Mr Bean", you can't buy that kind of endorsement.

This was after Mr Brown was dubbed "the magician" by the French press after the weekend's summit. Indeed, as if by magic, the utterly beleaguered state that the Prime Minister found himself in just a few weeks ago, with his colleagues demanding he goes, appears to have dissipated in the blind panic of the money markets.

Number 10 has denied that Mr Brown is "enjoying" the financial meltdown but one gets the distinct impression that the Prime Minister now regards himself as the sage elder statesman, who has his chest puffed out and sprinkles wisdom among lesser mortals when he attends the summits - there's yet another one in Brussels later this week.

Grudgingly perhaps, the public has recognised that - given all the gloom-laden rhetoric - an ex-chancellor and his successor, both of whom come across as dour Scottish bank managers, may be sort of the people to see us through a crisis.

Of course, all things are relative. A poll at the weekend showed Labour's standing had risen three points to 33% while the Tories slipped three to 43%; that's still a 10-point lead.

Bipartisanship over the bailout plan only went so far yesterday. The Conservatives found it difficult to show fulsome solidarity over the £50bn plan, resorting to the oppositional instinct of attacking opponents.

David Cameron was in Halifax to meet English workers affected by the HBOS merger.

In a newspaper article, George Osborne made clear it was necessary to rescue the banking system to protect the wider economy.

Yet the Shadow Chancellor noted: "To regard today as a triumph, as some in government seem to do, is bizarre and it misjudges the public mood," describing the rescue package as "a necessary but desperate last-ditch attempt to avoid catastrophe".

Making clear how he hoped the bailout billions would work, he nonetheless could not resist putting the political boot in, saying that support on the one hand should not prevent the Tories from regarding this as "the moment when Gordon Brown was finally forced to confront the consequences of building a 10-year economic boom on a mountain of debt".

Yet Alistair Darling was still able to suggest in the Commons that the Opposition was taking an ambiguous if not hypocritical position by, on the one hand, supporting the bailout but, on the other, criticising it, saying: "You either support a scheme like this or you don't. If you are going to do it, you need to do it properly. You can't do it in half measures."

For the LibDems, Vince Cable suggested the UK Government should target the bad bankers, adding: "Now because Stalin in Number 10 has rediscovered his confidence, it might be the time for a Beria in Number 11 to launch a purge of irresponsible bankers."

First Minister Alex Salmond is also trying to appear supportive. He backed the £30bn government lifeline thrown to two Scottish banks but called for further action to help Scotland's economy.

Mr Salmond said the billions being injected into HBOS and the Royal Bank of Scotland should pay off in the long term. He also argued that, now measures had been put in place to stabilise the crisis in the financial sector, politicians must turn their focus to the real economy.

He added: "It should be remembered that both the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS, as highly profitable institutions, have been the UK's biggest corporate tax earners in recent years.

"In that light, it is perfectly sensible for the Chancellor to argue that the equity stake underwritten by the government is looked upon as an investment which will be redeemed in due course, given a return to anything approaching normal conditions."

So cometh the hour, cometh the man, the old saying goes. There are lessons from the past - and not all positive for Mr Brown. Winston Churchill was the hero and saviour through the Second World War, but, having done his job, was unceremoniously dumped by the British electorate once hostilities had ended.

The financial crisis has helped the Prime Minister. Yet once the full effects of the recession hit, who are people going to blame? Like Churchill, Mr Brown might see us through the long, dark night only to be dropped when daylight finally breaks.