Mr Brown needed to distinguish himself from his predecessor, impress a jaundiced electorate and do it in hurry—or face being seen as a fag-end failure.

布朗先生需要表现出他与前任者的不同，让心怀偏见的选民刮目相看，并速战速决——否则，他就会被人民看做是布莱尔失败后的余灰。

youdao

Some of them were surprisingly frank when they spoke to my colleagues about fighting at the fag end of a war and handing over control to others.

BBC: Mission, sort of, accomplished