Hard Times On the Thames

Calvinism, it seems, is back.

"All of a sudden, it's great to look like you haven't slept at all," said Ann Treneman, who writes about British politics in London's Times newspaper. "He's an austere Presbyterian. And he's finally found a crisis that's as grave as he seems to be all the time."

Treneman, in an interview, said Brown's command of financial matters -- he was chancellor of the exchequer, or finance minister, for a decade -- has impressed many and disarmed his political rivals. Even those who were calling for his head weeks ago are now falling over themselves to support his financial rescue plans.

"He really is able to talk that language, and people are nodding sagely as if they know what he is talking about," Treneman said. "Yesterday, when he said the words, 'We are leading the world,' people believed it. Three weeks ago, he couldn't lead a dog."

Treneman said Brown seemed thoroughly at ease leading amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

"It's like he's relaxing. It's weird," she said. "I assume when everything gets better, he'll become an uptight, incommunicative, impossible-to-talk-to guy again. But this has been the making of him."

Brown's response to the crisis is a bank rescue plan worth up to 400 billion pounds, or slightly less than the $700 billion U.S. bank bailout plan.

In interviews in and around the financial district Thursday, people said pressure for austerity, or at least the appearance of it, replaced conspicuous spending almost overnight.

Christopher Roth, 24, a London banker, sat at a table on a sidewalk near the River Thames on Thursday, eating a $7 chicken sandwich with his banker buddies.

He said he prefers to eat upstairs at the elegant OXO Tower Restaurant, owned by the Harvey Nichols department store company. There, along with stunning views of St. Paul's Cathedral and the financial district, lunch customers can enjoy fillet of beef with a "truffle cream bon-bon" for $55.

"Those days are over," Roth said. "We're not even supposed to be seen up there. But I hope this doesn't last long, because it's boring."

Mark Jackson, 46, who leads bicycle tours of London, said he has seen men in dark suits carrying their belongings out of banks after losing their jobs.