Next: Harriet Who?

Gordon Brown's poll ratings are in the dumps, but for vicious headlines it would be hard to compete with Harriet Harman, deputy leader of the British Labour Party. A prominent figure in the Tony Blair and Brown governments, she has been dubbed "Ham-Fisted Hattie" by right-wing commentators for her alleged incompetence. Her shrill tone and emphasis on political correctness, as well as a weakness for class-war politics, mean she's "Harriet the Harridan" or "Hideous Harman." Yet Harman, 58, has become the bookmakers' favorite to take the party reins after Brown's all-but-certain defeat in the next election, due within 15 months.

Her surprising emergence as the front runner is a reflection of the great difficulties Labour is having in the midst of an economic crisis. After 12 years in government it now trails far behind the Conservatives in polls. Party membership is less than half its 1997 level, and M.P.s are growing bolder in their criticism of the party's direction. Ideologically, Labour seems more confused than ever. Some M.P.s want it to move toward a modified version of the pro-market strategies that characterized the New Labour leadership of Blair and Brown. But the financial storm seems to have discredited this approach, and Labour leaders are finding it tough to sell policies that smack of neoliberal solutions. Even government supporters admit the party needs a new and clearer narrative. "Labour faces an uphill struggle because it isn't articulating why it deserves a fourth term," says Jessica Asato of the New Labour group Progress. "We can't win on just being good stewards of the recession."

A more likely scenario is that the party will shift left, perhaps under Harman's leadership. Though she has denied interest in the job, she is well positioned for it. Since entering Parliament in 1982 as one of only 10 Labour women M.P.s, she has made a name as an advocate of equality and women's rights. Over the years she's served in a range of posts, including Social Security secretary, where she was charged with overhauling the welfare state. She was the first woman to hold the solicitor-general post, and she still holds a clutch of jobs, including leader of the House of Commons. Her latest project is a bill that would expand laws barring discrimination against women, the elderly and minorities.

Yet her campaigning zeal has never translated into public affection, limiting her support to a narrow but powerful segment of the political world. Her strident feminism (one more nickname: "Hattie Harperson") irritates some. Others deplore her humorlessness and her attempts to distance herself from her middle-class background. Still others say she lacks intellectual heft.

What Harman offers in a time of indecision is passion and indomitable self-belief. If she has yet to articulate a coherent set of policies, she has clearly aligned herself with the left, setting out to endear herself to the unions. (Her marriage to Jack Dromey, deputy leader of the giant Transport and General Workers' Union, has helped.) Although the party has fought to distance itself from the unions, which came to be seen as an embarrassing reminder of a gritty past, they remain the party's principal paymasters and symbols of older Labour values like solidarity and collective action. If the polls are correct, middle-class voters who defected to Labour in the 1990s are now heading back to the Tory fold, which means it's time for Labour to refocus on such core supporters.

In the end, her charisma-lite style may prove fatal to a claim to the leadership, but her positions win favor with many in a party that's increasingly disenchanted with Brown's free-market liberalism. Some M.P.s are pressuring Brown to bring forward plans for a 45 percent supertax on high earners. Harman's idea that the government should strip Fred Goodwin, former head of the ruined Royal Bank of Scotland, of his £700,000-per-year pension was calculated to win support among Labour rank and file and the public. Last week Harman ally Jon Cruddas published a critique of Labour's failings that argued that by espousing "market fundamentalism," the party had "lost the language of generosity, kindness and community."

Still, history should make any Labour M.P. nervous of a leftward lurch. The last one, after the crushing election defeat of 1979, has been blamed for keeping the party out of power for 18 years, allowing Thatcherism to flourish. Besides, there's no real consensus on what Labour ought to look like. A party that deliberately junked socialism in the '90s has fallen out of love with the alternative Blairite prescriptions. Labour has "gone from wanting to occupy the commanding heights of the economy," in Lenin's phrase, to allowing big businesses to do what they want, "to nationalizing them by default," says Labour M.P. Sally Keeble. "And that's a very odd position to be in." Whether Harman or any other leader-in-waiting can sort out that conundrum remains to be seen.