Gordon Brown had every reason to look wistful as he watched the energetic French leader and his glamorous wife seduce his queen and country last week. Try as he might, grumpy Gordon lacked that magic something, that certain je ne sais quoi that was being exuded with such nonchalant ease by the couple from Paris. By half of it, at least.

Into a country groaning under the gloom of rising mortgage payments and falling property prices came Carla Bruni-Sarkozy to claim her crown as the new Queen of Hearts. Just watching this svelte former model and singer bewitching the great and good of the land seemed to cheer up the nation: state visits have seldom seemed so exciting.

Or frivolous, as some were saying. Is this what politics has come to: a circus or, as one commentator put it, a “soufflé of silliness”? Have we entered the epoch of the showmen presidents, the “barons of bling”?

SELDOM has Britain seen anything like the “Carlamania” that engulfed the nation when the Italian pin-up turned première dame stepped off her plane from Paris with the “little fella”, as The Sun referred to the pint-sized president.

They bewitched banquets and canoodled together on a river trip – never has pleasure cruising been so aptly named. Each change of outfit was greeted by a torrent of hyperbole from the press. The pundits were smitten. So, apparently, were the Queen and, especially, the Duke of Edinburgh. Bruni even managed to enrapture a group of high-powered British women at a charity lunch hosted by Sarah Brown, the prime minister’s wife. Carla confessed that she had been nervous on only three occasions: the birth of her child, a huge pop concert and last week.

The beginning was not auspicious. The couple arrived to find that Carla was the first wife of a visiting head of state to be pictured naked in Britain’s newspapers. At best that seemed unchivalrous, at worse the latest act of hostility in the centuries-old cross-Channel rivalry. By the end of the week, however, diplomacy seemed merely a backdrop for the fashion parade: the speech by Bruni-Sarkozy’s husband before parliament was dismissed by one observer as a “torrent of crème Chantilly sprayed from a high-pressure hose”. Yet the newspapers were wondering if they had discovered the “new Diana”.

If it all seems a bit vacuous, bear in mind that Tony Blair was, in some ways, the inspiration for the European “blingocracy”. Sarkozy, who often holds up Britain as an example for France to follow, adores Blair and is eager to make him Europe’s first president.

The adoration is mutual. “Your president is very energetic,” Blair told a gathering of Sarkozy’s centre-right party in Paris just after news emerged that the French leader was dating Bruni late last year. He paused before adding: “In every domain.”

Blair recognised the political advantage of being seen to associate with pop stars. Not long after his election in 1997 he was inviting the cool kids from Britpop to parties at No 10. A legion of famous guests followed them to Chequers, including Bono, Bob Geldof, Mick Hucknall, David Bowie and Sir Elton John.

Blair broke a long tradition of statesmanlike reserve among prime ministers by being photographed in his swimming trunks on holiday, usually in the homes of the rich and famous, including the Miami beach mansion belonging to Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, Sir Cliff Richard’s Barbados holiday home and the French 15th-century chateau of Alain-Dominique Perrin, a French millionaire businessman.

The Blairs also holidayed at the Sardinian villa of Silvio Berlusconi, who showered them with gifts. What leader other than this Italian “king of bling” would boast that it was his skills as a “playboy” that had enabled him to seduce the female prime minister of Finland into agreeing to locate the European Food Safety Authority in Italy instead of Helsinki?

Blair may have gone, but the power of bling is embodied still in Berlusconi, who, at 71, remains the man to beat in next month’s Italian elections.

“Blingocrats” are springing up everywhere, even in Russia. Vladimir Putin’s removal of his shirt to show off his pectorals while on a Siberian hunting holiday would have been an unimaginable gesture in Leonid Brezhnev’s day. Mind you, the sight of Brezhnev topless was probably not a vote winner (not that votes mattered to him).

Latin Americans have always enjoyed politics as soap opera or an extension of show business. Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan leader, who has his own television show, is simply continuing a trend that began with Argentina’s Juan Domingo Peron and his wife Eva. But for Euopeans it is a novelty.

Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy’s immediate predecessor, descended now and then from his cloud to mingle with mortals, but the closest he came to showbiz was watching his favourite westerns on television. François Mitterrand, the Socialist president, did not object to comparisons with God.

As for the British, cricketers were the boundary of John Major’s exploration of the world of celebrity and it is not difficult to imagine what Margaret Thatcher would have thought about Britpop.

Brown is very much in this traditional mode. He hides away his best, perhaps only, claim to “blingdom” – the friendship that he and Sarah enjoy with J K Rowling, the Harry Potter author.

An enjoyment of music seems to unite the “bling” boys – Berlusconi is a former professional crooner, Sarko a karaoke enthusiast, Blair an electric guitar player – but Brown even denied reports that he liked the super-cool Sheffied teenage band Arctic Monkeys.

While Sarko dresses in Prada and Blair had suits made to measure in finest worsted, Brown has seldom been seen in anything other than a navy suit and white shirt, or a pull-over at the weekend.

As for his holidays, they could not be farther removed from the opulent idylls of the Blair years or Sarkozy’s Christmas cruise down the Nile. Before becoming prime minister, Brown went on jaunts to Cape Cod to meet Harvard economists and Massachusetts Democrats, not a showy crowd. Last year he spent a wet afternoon in Weymouth before scrapping his summer holidays to handle the foot and mouth crisis.

The kiss he landed, with more enthusiasm than grace, on the cheek of “Queen Carla” seemed a step, at least, in the right direction. Yet he seemed a figure of fun as he tried to match up to Sarkozy and his magical missus. He was reported to have got lost in Windsor Castle during the state banquet, much to the Queen’s amusement.

On Friday, in an attempt to appear more informal, he gave a speech without notes to the Scottish Labour party. It back-fired. To laughter, he talked about Nelson Mandela having been freed “in our lunchtime”, rather than “lifetime”. David Cameron, he ain’t In the words of one back-bencher, Sarkozy was “a reminder of what we lost when we kicked out Tony”. He went on: “The Blairs, particularly Cherie, never quite had the pizzazz that the Sarkozys evidently have. But they did have a showbiz glamour; and, whether we like to admit it or not, that counts in politics.”

EVEN so, being blingy is a tricky balancing act for any politician, as Blair and Sarkozy discovered to their misfortune. Blair’s approval rating dived when his honeymoon with the electorate ended. His showbiz visitors to Chequers began to appear not a reflection of how cool he was but an example of his focus on surface rather than substantive issues. How could anything that the Spice Girl Gerri Halliwell would say help him to run the country better?

For Sarkozy, his honeymoon ended extremely quickly after a series of ill-advised antics with Bruni. In fact, polls show that the French have had it with “le président bling-bling” – a nickname that he gained after racing around in the jets of billionaire friends, wearing flashy watches and Ray-Bans.

Since marrying Bruni two months ago he has been trying to remodel himself as a more dignified figure. In this quest for gravitas he has ditched the jogging shorts, designer sunglasses and Rolex and picked his engagements more carefully, commemorating resistance heroes and launching a nuclear submarine called Le Terrible.

The Queen was a key prop in Sarko’s effort to look more presidential. Last week’s focus on his wife was very much a premeditated political act. The French, although unable to suppress their naturally sceptical streak, seemed in little doubt that “Queen Carla” would help to resurrect Sarkozy.

“He will seem a more worthy, wiser and above all calmer man,” predicted Denis Muzet, a sociologist. “He will win back sympathy through the image of a recognised, almost sanctified couple.”

Others are not so sure that such good publicity will have long-term effects. Glamour, said Peter Kellner, chairman of the opinion poll group YouGov, “can draw people to the shop window to inspect the goods”. But he added: “You can be ugly and still win elections. Rarely do good looks, an attractive speaking manner or a beautiful wife decide how people vote.”

After Carlamania, many politicians will be hoping he is right.

Times Recommends

• Congo's rangers risk their lives to guard gorillas
• Pearl farming in China losing its lustre
• Axl Rose mystery as album arrives at last