Former British prime minister Gordon Brown thought the financial crisis would only last six months, according to a new book by the country's finance minister at the time, according to dpa. Brown, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2010, spanning the height of the crisis, also ran a "fairly brutal regime", according to Alastair Darling, who was finance minister under him. At the height of the crisis in 2008, Brown told Darling the crisis would only last six months, and that Darling was being "too cautious." In an interview to promote the book on the BBC, Darling also said other Labour party politicians should have "done something" about Brown's leadership before he took the party to election defeat in 2010. At the time Brown was credited with coordinating an early G20 response to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subprime mortgage crisis in the US, as it spread through the world economy. Tony Blair, Brown's predecessor as prime minister, has also criticized his successor. In his autobiography last year, he described Brown - whose perceived lack of charisma with voters saw the party struggle in opinion polls - as having "zero emotional intelligence."
