Gordon Brown was not unlucky. In fact he was lucky, given his personality, to get where he did. But Tony Blair recognised that his intelletual ability and capacity was essential to the success of New Labour, but because of Brown's inability to empathise with people as individuals, rather than as just economic entities with needs that could be addressed with the right financial policies, he was doomed from the start.
I had and still have an immense respect for Gordon Brown, as an indivdual, but as Prime Minster he was his own worst enemy.
Boris Johnson, on the other hand is a serial liar and cheat, of limited intellectual ability, he made be clever, that that is something else entirely. He is a man with no thought of anything but his own aggrandisement. Most of his problems, COVID apart,are entirely of his own making.