Who is the british prime minister of 2009?

Answer 1

Gordon Brown- he had been Chancellor under Tony Blair's Premiership, and took over as Prime Minister when Blair was forced to resign in late June 2007.

However, although a competent and strong Chancellor, Brown proved to be a weak and ineffective PM, not handling Britain's military deployment in Afghanistan well and seemingly incapable of decisive action. He was also Prime Minister during the 'MP's Expenses Scandal' of 2009 / 10. All MPs are entitled to claim allowances and expenses for essentials that enable them to do their work- travel expenses, hotel bills, employment of staff in their constituency office, and so on, all of which is met by the taxpayer. But it soon became apparent that a great many MPs were abusing the system, claiming money for non-essential or even luxury items such as clothing, home improvements, holidays, expensive meals out, and so on. They did not declare these expenditures in the House of Commons accounts, so nobody had a record of where the money was going or who was spending it, just that expenses bills were skyrocketing.

Although some Conservative and a few Liberal Democrat MPs were guilty of this, the vast majority of the offenders were Labour members- Brown himself was not one of them, but he was forced to sack his Home Secretary Jackie Smith as one of the guilty parties, and several Labour MPs were jailed for their involvement in the fraud. This, together with Brown's poor leadership qualities, resulted in him being voted out in the 2010 election- he was only ever a 'caretaker' leader, and never elected in his own right.

However, tragedy befell him when he was in office, when his firstborn son died in infancy. Everybody was sorry for him about this- some issues go beyond politics.