For months Gordon Brown has known his lingering chances of staging one of the great modern political fightbacks rested on the last 48 hours in London as the ringmaster of 22 egotistical world leaders. The potential for mishap was infinite, despite months of meticulous planning by officials, economists, diplomats and Brown on phones, planes and automobiles. As an academic - and a cautious politician - Brown prepared, with his aides, every move in the run up to the summit, trying to identify all the pitfalls that could derail the summit. Little did they know the great threat to a triumph was to come from the PM's close personal friend Nicolas Sarkozy, the ally Brown has done more to cultivate than any other European leader. After Brown's gloriously successful hour-long press conference with Barack Obama on Wednesday, Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, flew under the radar into London to despatch a broadside on the draft communique, and its controls on unregulated capitalism. Brown had tried to fend off the attack in advance phone calls to the leaders, but to no avail. When it was launched, Downing Street struggled to assess the damage.