Gordon Brown's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 27 June 2007 when he accepted an invitation of Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding Tony Blair, and ended on 11 May 2010 upon his resignation.

He remained committed to close ties with the United States and to the war in Iraq, although he established an inquiry into the reasons for Britain's participation in the conflict.

Brown's government introduced monetary and fiscal policies to help keep the banks afloat during the financial crisis in 2008, and as a result the United Kingdom's national debt increased dramatically.

The Labour Party was persuaded to give Gurkhas settlement rights in Britain by the campaign of actress Joanna Lumley and attracted criticism for its handling of the Scottish Government's release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi—the only person to have been convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

His popularity amongst the public may have been because his handling of numerous serious events during his first few weeks as prime minister, including two attempted terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow at the end of June 2007.

However, between the end of 2007 and September 2008, his popularity fell significantly; two contributing factors were believed to be his perceived change of mind over plans to call a general election in October 2007 and his handling of the 10p tax rate cut in 2008, which led to allegations of weakness and dithering.

[3] The threat of a leadership contest receded due to his perceived strong handling of the global financial crisis in October, but his popularity hit an all-time low and his position became increasingly untenable following the May 2009 expenses scandal and Labour's poor results in the 2009 local and European elections.

With the onset of the Great Recession, the Labour government under Brown took the blame from a worsening economic climate, soaring unemployment and the expenses scandal.

He faced a second attempt to launch a leadership challenge by former Cabinet colleagues Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt in January 2010, but the plot failed to gather momentum and Brown remained as both Labour leader and prime minister to lead his party into the 2010 general election.

Brown remained prime minister while the Liberal Democrats entered separate negotiations with Labour and the Conservatives with a view to forming a coalition government.

Appearances and news coverage leading up to the handover were interpreted as preparing the ground for Brown to become Prime Minister, in part by creating the impression of a statesman with a vision for leadership and global change.

This enabled Brown to signal the most significant priorities for his agenda as prime minister; speaking at a Fabian Society conference on 'The Next Decade' in January 2007, he stressed education, international development, narrowing inequalities (to pursue 'equality of opportunity and fairness of outcome'), renewing Britishness, restoring trust in politics, and winning hearts and minds in the war on terror as key priorities.

[24] Brown's senior advisers, including Spencer Livermore, Sue Nye, Mike Ellam and Gavin Kelly, continued to exert considerable influence on the government.

The following day, a car was driven into the entrance of the main terminal of Glasgow International Airport in a second apparent terrorist attack, causing a fire and considerable damage to the building.

[55] Brown advocated a "Government of All the Talents" (GOAT) in which people who had not previously been members of the Labour Party but had expertise in specific areas would be appointed as ministers.

Brown's close aide Douglas Alexander said in a Washington D.C speech, "In the 21st century, strength should be measured on what we can build together ... we need to demonstrate by our deeds, words and our actions that we are internationalist, not isolationist, multilateralist, not unilateralist, active and not passive, and driven by core values, consistently applied, not special interests".

I think people have got to remember that the relationship between Britain and America and between a British prime minister and an American president is built on the things that we share, the same enduring values about the importance of liberty, opportunity, the dignity of the individual.

On the morning of 13 December 2007, Foreign Secretary David Miliband stood in for Brown at the official signing ceremony in Lisbon of the EU Reform Treaty, which was attended by all other European heads of government.

Conservative leader David Cameron pointed to Labour's 2005 manifesto, which had pledged to give the British public a referendum on the original EU Constitution.

[75] The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson said, "Gordon Brown's aim today appears to be to look and sound different from Tony Blair whilst simultaneously opening up no gap of substance with him and the decisions he took".

[98] On 9 December, in his final pre-Budget report before the 2010 general election, Chancellor Alistair Darling said that the recession had been deeper than predicted during the Budget in April, and that the government's programme of quantitative easing had made a "real difference" to families and businesses.

[107] Brown was accused by senior opposition politicians, including Conservative leader David Cameron, and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats of failing to provide proper support for soldiers and their families.

[111] In a session of Prime Minister's Questions some weeks later, David Cameron challenged Brown to concede on record that "no deals were done" in ensuring the bill was passed.

[121] Chancellor Alistair Darling cut the tax rate for 22 million people and borrowed around £2.7 billion to reimburse those on lower and middle incomes who had suffered.

This event was dubbed the "Lancashire Plot"; two backbenchers from North West England urged Brown to step down and a third questioned his chances of holding on to the Labour Party leadership.

In the following days, several Labour MPs—including Field, Joan Ryan (who applied, as McDonagh had, for leadership nomination papers, and became the second rebel to be fired from her job), Jim Dowd, Greg Pope, and others who had previously held positions in government—said they wanted a contest.

[129] David Miliband was then forced to deny that he was plotting a leadership bid; in July, an article written by him for The Guardian was interpreted by the media as an attempt to undermine Brown.

[143] A challenge to Brown's leadership was made in January 2010 when Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon wrote to Labour MPs calling for a secret ballot on the issue.

[144] On 31 January 2010, The Mail on Sunday reported that a book, The End of the Party written by the journalist Andrew Rawnsley, would make allegations that Brown had flown into a series of rages and had physically attacked members of his staff.

[156] Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg asked how Labour could deliver "fairness and new politics" when they had promised the same at previous general elections but had failed to do so.