It is the week when mutinous Labour MPs were going to regroup at Westminster – after a summer of plotting – and mount a leadership challenge against Brown.

They did return to Westminster. But, instead of showing the Prime Minister the door, they lauded their leader after one of the most audacious and ambitious announcements in post-war history – the part-nationalisation of Britain's besieged banking network in a desperate bid to rescue the economy.

Even Brown must have noted the irony after he sat down at the end of Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday and afforded himself the briefest smile of weary satisfaction.

What, he must have been thinking, would have been the consequences for the Government and Britain's very future if the rebels had chosen to go ahead with their plot prior to last month's Labour conference – and not allowed Brown one last opportunity to salvage his reputation?

From a leader with a bleak future, Brown now knows that his position is secure until the next election following such an abrupt transformation of the political landscape – one that has not been witnessed on such a scale since the Falklands War rescued Margaret Thatcher's reputation in 1982.

Thatcher was then fortunate in another regard. Her resurgence coincided with an economic upturn and the lack of a political alternative.

Brown does not have that luxury. The Tories still lead in the polls. And the economy will, in all probability, get worse before it gets better, despite this week's events – the £500bn banking bailout, the emergency interest rate cut and Peter Mandelson's Cabinet comeback – leading some to suggest that Brown will defy political gravity and recover from a seemingly hopeless position to win the next election.

Brown and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, certainly earned the respect of MPs and the wider public. Their actions this week demonstrated that experience is still a priceless commodity in politics. It is also noteworthy how people who have been so disparaging of Brown and Darling have remarked to me this week that they were relieved that it was these two Scots handling the crisis rather than David Cameron and George Osborne.

If I had received a pound for every occasion that remark was made, I may now be a major shareholder in one of the larger banks.

However, respect is only part of the equation. Politicians still need to command the public's trust and confidence. And that could still be Gordon Brown's undoing.

No one, least of all the Prime Minister, knows whether £500bn of taxpayers' money will be sufficient to kickstart the economy. Perhaps not, judging by the sums still being poured into America's ailing AIG group after the initial bailout.

But the PM and Chancellor do know that it is costing the Exchequer a fortune to finance their rescue plan – and that they will have to reveal the amount in the forthcoming Pre-Budget Report.

That will make very grim reading when the Government has to explain which spending projects will have to be put on hold to service this debt. Labour MPs in marginal seats may not be so willing to cheer if NHS and school services have to be scaled down.

And the cheers will very quickly become jeers if it emerges that taxpayers' money is being used to line the wallets of those City financiers whose greed knew no boundaries until the Stock Market came
crashing down.

Brown also faces the fallout from the International Monetary Fund's report that went largely unnoticed this week.

It warned of a deep recession that will continue until the end of 2009 at the earliest. That can only mean one thing. More job losses compounded by rising fuel bills – and other taxes – that will inevitably have to be imposed to ease the strain on the public finances and further dent the Government's popularity.

However, Brown now has to consider another factor, and it is this. If he can move so decisively to assist the banks, what will he say to those people in other sectors of the economy whose jobs cannot be saved?

Brown's insistence that the banks required special treatment, because they are the fulcrum of the economy, will fall on deaf ears. It will also test the patience of Labour MPs who know shares in politicians can rise and fall just as quickly as the stock market itself.

And then there is dear old Peter Mandelson whose appointment a week ago, as Business Secretary, has become the forgotten story.

The shock return of the plotter-in-chief became overshadowed by the enormity of the banking bailout. However, £500bn is unlikely to silence the former EU Commissioner for long – especially given his new pivotal role at the forefront of British economic policy.

Neither should it stop three legitimate questions being asked about the appointment of Brown's arch-enemy.

First, if Mandelson is the right man for the job, as the PM contended last week, why is he not Labour's candidate in next month's Glenrothes by-election when he could seek a democratic mandate?

Second, what does it say about the calibre of Ministers at the country's disposal that Brown had to appoint an individual who was twice forced to resign from the Government amid allegations of impropriety?

Only Winston Churchill has made three Cabinet comebacks – and "meddling" Mandelson is no Churchillian figure.

And, third, what does it say about the state of British democracy
when the Business Secretary cannot be questioned in the Commons by democratically-elected MPs about every aspect of his work, including schemes to help small businesses?

It is contemptuous of democracy that three out of the six Ministers at the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
are unelected peers.

It is also this department, with Mandelson at the helm, which will soon be compelled to launch some kind of formal inquiry into the banking crisis, and how the regulatory system set up by Brown failed the country so spectacularly.

The fact that Brown was Chancellor for the past decade will only add to his culpability and vulnerability when blame starts being apportioned.

He can consider himself fortunate that the Tories kept their counsel this week. However, the Conservatives' silence will not last. And that is what makes discussion about Brown's future so intriguing.

This is certainly the week that was the making of the Prime Minister – he actually looks comfortable in his own skin for the first time in months. His command of his party is absolute. Perhaps it does take a crisis to bring the best out of him.

But, ultimately, there is every likelihood that this week will go down in history as the one that finally broke Gordon Brown.

He might have relieved one problem by easing the liquidity crisis that was crippling the banks – but the price that he will have to pay for this is a whole new set of economic difficulties that will shatter public confidence in his government.