Instead he floundered about for six months making dramatic but poorly thought through policy decisions: to take charge of the hospitals of the nation and to tax the super-profits of the mining boom.
In London, it exceeded its national performance in 2010 and gained a swath of councillors in last year's local elections as the other parties floundered.
When a screener copy of Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables 3 hit the web for free earlier this year prior to its theatrical release, the sequel floundered at the US box office with just $39m (against an average of more than $90m for the first two movies in the series).
The Chinese were offered an apology for Japanese atrocities committed in China in the 1930s and 1940s, but plans to sign a joint declaration on bilateral ties floundered.
The firm was the darling of the social-gaming world at the time of its IPO in 2011, but it has floundered on smartphones and tablets.
He genially floundered his way through some substantive questions about constitutional law, and declared his opposition to abortion so strong that he would bring government to a halt rather than sign any bill that included abortion-related funding.
Investment banking, in particular, has floundered as its big banks have failed to consolidate or expand.
The two countries have no diplomatic relations, and previous attempts to hold talks have floundered because of the kidnapping issue along with North Korea's persistent demands for $10 billion or more in compensation for Japan's colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.Yet Japanese officials have recently sensed a change in North Korea.
He has always been bold and decisive: he took on the former telecoms monopoly and bought a bank during Japan's banking crisis a decade ago (though the business floundered).
Last year, as the salacious details of Mr McCourt's messy divorce dominated the headlines and the team floundered on the field, the Dodgers' attendance plummeted to 36,236 spectators a game far below their average of 45,350 from 2004-09.Moreover, their crosstown rivals, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, have made a powerful bid to supplant the Dodgers as the area's most beloved baseball team.
Mr Stedman Jones says that if the 1970s had not been so caustic, neoliberalism might have floundered.
