British PM at center of summit

LONDON —

Gordon Brown has been one of the few leaders with a spring in his step since the world economy began to nose-dive — and he'll be hoping it will carry him to success at a weekend summit on the global financial meltdown.

The British prime minister has thrown himself at the center of the financial crisis and looks to be relishing his punishing schedule of visits and late-night telephone talks aimed at pushing fellow leaders toward change.

He boasts of other nations matching Britain's banking-sector bailout, has a plan to buck the downturn with coordinated tax cuts or spending increases, and claims the summit in Washington, D.C., will be the most important since the end of World War II.

To minimize the fallout, Brown said governments ought to shift from focusing solely on fighting inflation through interest rates and monetary policy to using public spending to boost demand and employment.

He lauded the example set by China, which earlier this week unveiled a two-year, $586 billion stimulus package that included tax cuts and investment in infrastructure projects.

Brown's government is widely expected to propose its own tax cuts and new fiscal policies in the coming days. But in a news conference Tuesday he repeatedly stressed the need for countries to put forward their stimulus packages in concert, to give them maximum effect in an increasingly globalized economy.

"This is a chance for the world to work together," he said, noting that it did so last month in rolling out matching bank-bailout plans in rapid succession to shore up the ailing financial sector.

Brown also urged swift approval of a new deal on world trade long under negotiation and named for Doha, Qatar, where it was launched. Only "small differences" remained to be ironed out, said Brown, who warned against a "retreat into protectionism" at such an economically sensitive moment.

That last remark might be interpreted by some observers as an indirect admonition to President-elect Obama, whose commitment to free trade has been questioned. But Brown expressed confidence that Obama agreed with him on the need for a new trade pact.

But as Brown touches down in the U.S. today for a meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized and emerging economies he'll likely find few takers for his five-point agenda, which seeks to stimulate the world economy and clean up the banking system.

Some opponents joke that Brown looks to have mistaken the G-20's name, thinking the acronym must translate as Gordon's 20 — such has been his desire to set the grouping's agenda.

Brown sees an opportunity for greater cooperation to combat the slowdown and to reshape the world's governing bodies to give greater say to Asia and emerging economies.

His ally, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, hopes for debate on the future of currency systems and a mandate to come up with sweeping changes in only 100 days — but most other attendees predict more modest results.

Dominique Strauss-Khan, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has warned that expectations for the summit have likely been raised too high.

Brown claims the Washington, D.C., meeting should be a successor to Bretton Woods, the 1944 conference in New Hampshire that established international-monetary protocols governing trade, banking and other financial relations among nations to cope with economic problems after World War II. Bretton Woods spawned the activities of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, under the United Nations.

Besides coordination on fiscal-stimulus packages, Brown's agenda includes a cleanup of the banking system, a beefed- up surveillance role for the IMF, demands for banks to pass on interest-rate cuts to customers and a new push for a world trade deal.

He's likely already won assurances from the Persian Gulf region to help fund a vast increase of the IMF's $250 billion bailout pot for struggling economies and will pressure China to follow suit.

Brown also seeks a new network of global regulators who would scrutinize the world's largest financial institutions.

Others are more circumspect about the meeting's prospects.

"We still do not have the perfect diagnosis of the causes of the crisis and don't expect much from this G-20 meeting," Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said Tuesday after talks in Rome.

Germany says decisions on long-term action will take months.

But Sarkozy has pressed for a quick deal on an overhaul of the financial system, saying there is "no time to lose."

He takes credit for pressing President Bush to convene the summit, and may seek to push his own plan for a clamp down on tax havens — a measure that would put him at odds with Brown.

Brown and Sarkozy have taken on a global leadership role almost by default, said Howard Wheeldon, an analyst at London consulting firm BGC Partners — and because they're seeking to burnish their images at home.

"It's political, political, political," Wheeldon said. "Both Britain and France have set expectations far too high for the conference. They seem to see the G-20 meeting as a chance to show leadership to their domestic audiences."

The British leader is eager to cement his reputation as a pioneer in financial policy after 10 years as this country's chancellor of the exchequer under his predecessor, Tony Blair.

Last month, Brown was widely praised, and even called a savior of sorts, for devising a bank-rescue plan in Britain that other countries quickly copied, with its emphasis on recapitalizing struggling financial institutions with taxpayer money.

The international plaudits have been crucial in reviving Brown's fortunes at home. Just a few months ago, with his approval ratings at 17 percent, political commentators had all but written him off as a failed leader who would surely lose the next general election.

Now his performance has put Brown's Labor Party almost within striking distance of the Conservatives in the opinion polls again. Last weekend, Labor was able to hold on to a parliamentary seat in a closely watched special election in Scotland, in a district adjoining Brown's own.

A poll released Tuesday showed that more people trust Brown and his party to shepherd the economy through hard times than the opposition — an important vote of confidence amid new figures last month showing retail sales suffering their worst drop in three years and home sales falling to their lowest levels in three decades.