VIEW FROM MIDDLE ENGLAND A Rant from Anthony Rose Fires are being stoked under Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister. The surprise is that it has taken so long. He inherited a strong economy from the previous (Tory) administration : so strong, indeed, that even his bullying incompetence has taken a decade to undo the enviable position to which he was heir. It now seems an exercise in irony to have described him as “Prudence” Brown. His survival – and the slowness of the unravelling of his reputation – may in part be attributed to the lack of any credible opposition. There was a clue when he sold our gold reserves at the bottom of the market in 1999. It seems to me that the recent cloaking of David Cameron in the vestments of a Prime Minister in Waiting are borne as much of desperation as of unqualified support of Cameron.