There have always been obvious parallels between former Labout prime minister Jim Callaghan and Gordon Brown; both inherited the crown after years in waiting (although Callaghan concealed his ambition rather better) and both knew that they might be in for a very short time. Both men turned down the option of having an early election they were favourites to win, Callaghan subsequently lost in 1979 to Margaret Thatcher and Brown may well do the same to David Cameron in 2010. Callaghan was chiefly bedevilled by the trade union trouble of the 1970s, which resulted in the famous 'winter of discontent' which cost him the election, and in tandem with this he had a recession to cope with. Brown now has the mother and father of a recession and it looks like he's got trade union troubles too as the spat over jobs for foreign workers at the Total refinery in Lincolnshire (Total is a French company) fuels wildcat strikes all over the country from workers who feel helpless in face of the faceless threat called globalisation. And both men have been undone by their words, although Callaghan didn't deserve to be whereas Brown does. In early 1979 Callaghan returned from an economic summit in sunny Guadeloupe to a Britain with everybody apparently on strike, from dustmen to the council workers who were supposed to bury bodies. When asked by a hack at the airport what was going on 'Sunny' Jim, who wasn't anywhere near as sunny in real life as he was made out to be, said, "I don't think other people would share the view that's there's mounting chaos in the country." The Sun newspaper subbed this down a bit to: Crisis, what crisis? And Callaghan was doomed. Speaking to the Labour Party conference Brown, at his most bombastic, promised "British jobs for British workers", which was an insult to all the useful foreigners working over here and not in his gift to deliver anyway as there's free movement of labour within the European Union. And it's exactly what's not happening in Lincolnshire, as numerous angry British workers have reminded him. To compound the felony Brown is grandstanding at Davos, trying to make it look as though Britain is leading the world through the economic crisis (a bit reminiscent of Guadeloupe apart from the weather) and the minister deputed to deal with this crisis is trade minister Pat McFadden, who no-one's ever heard of and was trying to move house at the same time. McFadden actually kept his end up pretty well but the damage is done and it may prove to be fatal. In the years since Mrs Thatcher's slash and burn war on the unions workers have tended to keep their heads down when things have got tough, hoping to keep their jobs. But now, when they think they'll probably lose them anyway, things could get extremely nasty, as they have in Paris with riots in the streets. Brown, currently 15 points behind in the polls, has no answer to this. He can't keep on blaming American bankers. A month or so ago he looked a certainty to lead Labour into the election. He doesn't look like one now.