Where next for a former PM?

WITH the possibility of a deal between the Tories and Liberal Democrats ousting him from office, Gordon Brown now faces the same dilemma as Tony Blair did when he quit Number 10 in 2007.

What to do next when you lose power in the prime of life, with years to go before retirement but no obvious career plan ahead of you?

In recent weeks, he has suggested he might look for work in education or charity. But many observers believe he will seek a role in an international institution.

Speaking to GMTV’s Lorraine Kelly just days before the general election, Brown said: “I may go off and do charity voluntary work.”

In what was seen by some observers as a veiled rebuke to Blair for his money-spinning post-Downing Street corporate appointments, Brown added: “I don’t want to do business or anything else, I just want to do something good.”

With his record of commitment to causes like alleviating child poverty, tackling climate change and ending global poverty, Brown can expect to find charities queuing up for his service as patron, chairman or chief executive.

But he has been touted for years for a series of international finance posts.

He has been suggested in the past for the job of president of the World Bank, the international community’s principal agency for channelling aid to developing nations.

The International Monetary Fund could also beckon or he could become the head of the new over-arching international regulator he believes should be set up to prevent another crash of the world’s banking institutions.

Brown could also reverse the trend of City figures advising Government that he was so fond of, with his eventual appointment to a clutch of banking boards.