Gordon Brown's resignation as an MP has prompted many retrospectives. I suspect, though, that they are mostly misdiagnosing his strengths and weaknesses.

First, his strengths. I agree with Jonathan that he deserves credit for keeping us out of the euro and for his response to the 2008 crisis. He also should be praised for giving the Bank of England operational independence: having Chancellors set interest rates seems even sillier now than it did at the time.

I'll praise him too for his seriousness of purpose. New Labour was a high-minded and coherent attempt to address genuine economic questions: how to achieve growth, stability and equality in an era of globalization? And these were at least a partial success: poverty did indeed fall under New Labour. And, remember, his concern for child poverty was rooted not merely in morality (nor even as a backdoor way of reducing adult poverty) but in good economics: as James Heckman has shown, giving kids a good start in life builds human capital. At a time when party politics has become divorced from economics, Brown's attempt to unite the two looks admirable.

What's more, some of the criticisms of him are misplaced:

- The claim that fiscal policy should have been tighter before the crisis is wrong. Companies then were running a financial surplus because of the dearth of investment opportunities. That meant someone had to borrow. Had the government not done so, economic activity would have been weaker and hence interest rates lower. That would have fuelled even greater malinvestments.

- With hindsight, he should have regulated banks more tightly. But very few people said this at the time, least of all his right-wing critics. What's more, this error arose from what was in the 1990s a reasonable impulse. In its effort to establish economic "credibility" with voters and the media, Labour was desperate to show that it was a friend of business - which meant light regulation.

- Yes, his talk of ending the cycle of boom and bust was nonsense. But I'm not sure it was ever intended as a statement of fact. Brown was convinced - with reason - that uncertainty reduced business investment. His talk of stability was thus intended to reassure firms and boost capital spending. It was like a football manager praising a mediocre player - an untruth intended to increase confidence.

All that said, he did have serious flaws. I never liked his style of politics: the secrecy, the cabal of flunkies and the obsession with spin that saw pre-announcements, anouncements and re-announcements of policy. And whilst Dan Hodges' assessment is mostly wrong, he is right to condemn him for his ambition without purpose: "He yearned and schemed for the ultimate prize for so long, that when he finally secured it he had no idea what to do with it."

And there were (at least) two policy failures. Although he was exercised by inequality in the sense of the 90/10 ratio, he paid far too little heed to the rising incomes - and perhaps more importantly, power - of the top 1%. In fact, his fawning over bosses might even have contributed to the hubris which gave us the banking crisis. And his failure to significantly reform public services meant that productivity stagnated. This has stored up trouble now that politicians believe they can no longer increase public spending.

There is a common theme in these personal and policy weaknesses - a belief in managerialism, an over-rating of leadership and hierarchy.

In this, of course, Brown was not unique; as Blair's post-PM career has shown, he wasn't the only one to be excessively deferential to the rich and powerful.

And herein lies something which is often overlooked by the division between Blairites and Brownites. In truth, the two men have much in common - for both good and ill.