After the ‘Teflon Tony’ years of his predecessor Blair’s slick premiership, Gordon Brown has endured a rocky ride, with unfavourable comparisons to Mr. Bean over his fallibility.

Partly, this is down to bad luck, with the end of a long period of economic growth now threatened by a recession on the back of the credit crisis.

In addition it is also due to natural voter weariness with the party in power not to mention the sense that Brown lacks the people skills and warmth that Blair possessed in abundance.

The latest crisis to test Brown’s mettle is the freeze-up in the UK mortgage market, with banks sitting on their cash assets.

This has led to the Bank of England (BoE) announcing a major liquidity injection, with £50bn in Treasury bills available in return for difficult to sell mortgage-backed assets.

To avoid accusations of a bail-out, the BoE has put in place tough conditions, which are also intended to ensure that the facility sorts out the overhang of difficult-to-sell assets on the banks’ books, rather than subsidising new lending.

For the banks, this measure and other capital raising exercises, such as rights issues, could ease liquidity fears and help raise the levels of lubrication provided by credit in the economy.

It is too early to see how the rescue package works, but one factor likely to be important is the extent to which market participants think that the credit crisis has reached its nadir.

If the market believes the bottom has been reached, it could help get things moving.

But if banks are jittery over other possible failures, the liquidity injection might not revive the patient as hoped.

For Gordon Brown, the success of the deal may well make or break his political fortunes.

If it works and a recession, or collapse in house prices, is avoided, Brown can fight the next election on his economic record.

But if the economy stagnates and house prices drop, Brown could be calling the removal men come election time.

The key indicator here, certainly for consumers, is house prices.

Despite the fact that the market is over-valued and that starter homes are unaffordable to many first-time buyers, a fall in house prices would be seen by many as a catastrophe, rather than a necessary correction.

Alongside this, the rescue package could be inflationary and arguably sends the message to the banks that if they get it wrong, the government will bail them out.

Against this, the importance of the banks to the economy as a whole means that the package has been judged as necessary.

Many ordinary workers would happily see those bankers capable of spending tens of thousands on night out in flashy nightclub out on the streets, but the financial sector and the City of London are too important for the UK economy to let any banks go down.

As a result, we are seeing, the words of the US left-wing writer Noam Chomsky, ‘the socialisation of cost and the privatisation of profit’.

In other words, when it goes well, a few lucky individuals take the profits, but major losses and the wider public costs are borne by the ordinary householder in higher mortgages and poorer government finances.

Perhaps a revolt against this will decide the next election.