British Premier unveils secret weapon - his wife

LONDON (AFP) - Struggling British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is increasingly relying on a secret weapon as he battles to win back support from voters " his self-deprecating but smart wife Sarah.


She drew rapturous applause this week when, introducing her husband at a make-or-break speech to his Labour Party.


After that surprise appearance the couple travelled on to New York for the UN General Assembly " where she was pictured with US Republican vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin at a charity dinner.


This higher profile suggests the former public relations executive, whose low-key style contrasts sharply with ex-premier Tony Blair's forthright wife Cherie, is stepping out of the shadows just when her husband needs her most.


"She is charming and disarming," said Australian novelist Kathy Lette, who has known her for 20 years, in the run-up to this week's Labour Party conference " to be followed by the Conservatives from Sunday.


"She is more disarming than a United Nations peacekeeping force and the Labour Party should unleash her."


Brown's Labour Party has been languishing around 20 percentage points behind the main opposition Conservatives, according to recent polls, and the party has been jumping with talk of rebellion.


Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly said she was quitting for family reasons Wednesday amid reports, denied by Kelly and Brown, that the move is linked to dissatisfaction with the premier.


Four rebel lawmakers have already left junior government jobs this month and 12 have called for a leadership contest.


Commentators say Sarah Brown, 44, could help stop the rot by highlighting a more human side to Brown, whose dry, intellectual style turns many voters off.


"Sarah Brown is a phenomenal asset to Gordon," Zoe Williams wrote in the centre-left Guardian newspaper Thursday.


"She makes him seem human; she makes his smile seem real; she makes you feel there is more to him than meets the eye; she makes you trust him, because she does."


Her few public comments so far suggest she also has a dry sense of humour.


After press criticism of the outfit she wore when she met Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, at Downing Street in March, she quipped: "I didn't stand a chance, did I? I was standing next to a supermodel. Whatever I wore didn't matter."


Gordon and Sarah Brown were married in 2000 in a modest ceremony at the then finance minister's home north of Edinburgh after he had spent years in the public eye as a bachelor obsessed with politics.