How to work with Brown: “quietly sidle out of the room”

Posted on May 11, 2007
Filed Under The Man Himself |

Sorry about the lack of posts, faithful readers, but i’ve been away. And what a week I chose to go and sun myself on the Maltese coast (unfortunately Sarkozy wouldn’t let me aboard the Paloma). I return to find that several ministers have decided to leave rather than work under Brown (they probably wouldn’t have got a seat at the table anyway), that the Home Office is going to remain unfit for purpose and that Brown is still running the country, although at least the “official” PM has now resigned.

But my time away was not wasted. I have reread Hugh Pym and Nick Koch’s book: Gordon Brown: the First Year in Power. Chapter Sixteen: Treasury Tribulations, is particularly interesting, and I am reliably informed that it was essential reading in the Treasury for sometime. Several unerring quotes particularly stand out:

The Treasury Senior Economic Advisor Sir Alan Budd “found Brown’s hectic pace and style uncongenial and later told friends that he found the Chancellor quick to anger. Other officials learnt to deal with Brown’s fury by ‘quietly sidling out of the room’”.

One civil servant is quoted as saying:

“His area of greatest trouble is in handling people, he likes to have his own way with colleagues….as things go wrong, they will find it harder to give the appearance of invincibility. “

Even Will Hutton is quoted as saying:

“People close to the Treasury are infuriated by the way they cannot pin him down, the way he breaks off a meeting with seconds to go, to go to another meeting withour any prior warning. They do not like the way… he tends not to delegate.”

No wonder no one wants to work for him when he becomes King in a few weeks time.

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