Chancellor with a passion for reform

Did anyone seriously think that Gordon Brown was going to deliver his first Budget since the death of his child with leaden voice and downcast eyes? Observers may have been noting his haggard look and his even more than usually reserved manner in recent months but any actor could tell you that Dr Theatre always works.

No matter the personal tragedy, the show must go on. And there isn't a more crowded house, a more expectant audience than the House of Commons on Budget day. What better therapy could there be for a workaholic, single-minded, stoical Scot, than weeks of complicated long-division sums followed by an hour at national centre stage, especially when what you want most in all the world is the leading role in the next production.

So the question was not whether Gordon Brown would deliver an authoritative performance on this most exposed of stages but whether the new found warmth and empathy for family life had survived the shock of bereavement or been firmly buried beneath the Chancellor of the Exchequer's dark suit and tie. The briefly joyful Chancellor has gone but had the human Chancellor survived?

His beams as he held the red Budget box aloft for photographers were unforced and promising, but this is a pitfall-free, uncomplicated moment. Chancellor knows what's in the box. We don't. Gordon Brown looked as though he was actually enjoying the annual joke.

Seated at Tony Blair's left shoulder at Question Time, he suffered, as they all do, from the terrible lighting but the bags under his eyes were modest compared to David Blunkett's and Claire Short's. Just a slightly nervous, self-conscious gesture of smoothing his hair gave away that his turn was coming. Standing squarely at the despatch box the Chancellor charged ahead at high speed as though he was talking against the clock. There was something robotic about his delivery, little light and shade in his deep voice. This was a man who was explaining and telling, not proposing and cajoling. He was like the bank manager who launches into a long, fact-filled, undeflectable explanation of why you can't have a loan. Even his hand gestures were emphatic and controlling rather than expansive.

I wondered at first how a man who was earnestly giving out so much fiscal good news could sound so glum about it. Prudence. Caution. Discipline. The watchwords were as sober as ever, the Chancellor's demeanour, particularly in contrast to Tony Blair's pleading body language and informally chummy manner, was chipped out of northern granite.

But as he warmed up, everything about him relaxed. He let go of the desk, he moved around, animated by the encouragement he was delivering to small business. The laughter that greeted his relief for bingo players and small breweries cheered him up even more. The granite Chancellor likes getting laughs.

By the time childcare came along he had come fully alive. He sailed through the potential poignancy of the attention he has paid to family life, not only without faltering, but was the nearest he came to genuine passion. A passion now wholly focused on fiscal reform. How Mrs Brown felt about her husband's performance we don't know, but Mr Brown gave a model lesson in how work and a mission gives a man a fast track out of grief.