Another book deal for Brown
It’s as if touring the country campaigning, preparing for Government and running the Treasury is not enough for Gordon. Yesterday he announced that he’s to write another book called Unsung Heroes. It’s going to be about “the kind of heroes we might each aspire to be”. Who might that include?
How to work with Brown: “quietly sidle out of the room”
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.
The early years
Just in case you missed last night’s background report on Gordon, here’s Channels 4’s dusted down footage again.
What can we learn from this?
Well, it seems that whilst he was Rector of Edinburgh University, not only did he intimidate the academic staff, he also took over, acting like he was in charge of everything. As the Principal said “sometimes student Rectors seemed to think that once they are Rector that this is equivalent to being PM, which is a complete misunderstanding of their role.” Sound familiar?!
Also note his brother’s response when asked if Gordon’s a control freak:
“I dont see him as a control freak…I..I..just don’t see that..um..being Gordon. Urmmm I think (pause)…he’s (brother struggling for an answer). He likes, he likes to know what is happening and..you know..does that make someone a control freak?”
A post-celebrity Britain?
Today the Guardian treated us to a 2 minute podcast on Gordon Brown informing us that Britain is moving away from its celebrity obsessed culture to more concern for “what lies behind the character or the personality.” According to Gordon people care about more than just fame and money.
To prove that he doesn’t care about being a celebrity, shortly after the interview, Gordon got himself on a plane to Washington and met up with George Bush. Everyone knows that meeting up with an unpopular US President is not going to improve your celebrity status.
But such meetings are as much about what Weber called self-legitimation, as convincing anyone at home that he’s going to be the next PM. Meeting up with the most powerful man in the world does wonders to impress upon yourself how important you are, even if your coronation plans are looking uncertain.
Self-legitimation must also partly be the reason he’s been spending so much time with celebrities, such as Kylie, recently.
A weekend of sustained attack on Brown
With bad polls, disastrous local election predictions and rumours of Reid planning to stand for the leadership contest (someone certainly won’t get a seat at Brown’s table now), Brown is certainly having a bad weekend.
But to make matters worse someone has dug up some of Brown’s old published work from the 1970s. The guide apparently informs the reader how to “scrouge off the state, con private firms and use and abuse the system”. Certainly little has change..now most of us legally rely scrouge off the welfare state.
Brown gives up his Kit-Kat
No wonder Brown’s getting peckish during PMQs. In an attempt to lose weight he’s given up his three daily Kit-Kats.
Gordon Brown’s politics for beginners
For those who want to understand Brown in 3 minutes:
Buying office in Euros
The BBC have been running an excellent documentary on 10 years of Blair called Tony Blair: The Inside Story. In tonight’s episode, Clare Short is going to reveal how Blair told her, on a flight to Africa, that if Brown allowed the UK to join the Euro, he’d allow him to become PM in the second term. Short then informed Brown, who had already been told by two other people. What a great way to run a government.
If only Brown had ignored all the economic data and expert advise and joined the struggling Euro-zone, he could have been PM. But at what cost?!
Mafia Boss Brown
Tonight Channel 4 finally began showing the latest series of the Sopranos. The series, which has all the features of a great Shakespearian tragedy, depicts the life of Mafia boss Tony Soprano, a brooding alpha male who trusts no one.
Perhaps Brown shares some similarities with Soprano. As Richard Scott said in the Sunday Mirror:
Brown runs a team that makes the Mafia look like a debating society. It is totally loyal to him and anyone who questions his policies is automatically an enemy.
In Cabinet meetings, Brown is said either to sit there scribbling furiously making notes, or to ignore everyone around him and contribute very little. In public, we often see Brown as a overbearing, puritanical figure. Someone we are almost scared of.
The question for both men is how will their own Greek tragedies end.
Who is No 1?
In the 1970s sci-fi spy thriller The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan tries to discover “who is Number 1″, the mysterious person who is keeping him in The Village. In a Kafka style ending, the last episode reveals that The Prisoner is himself Number 1.
Gordon Brown, trapped in the Westminster Village, is also infatuated with Number 1. Just as in the last episode of The Prisoner, we will soon discover that the real Number 1 has been Gordon Brown all along.
Current speculation is that a Brown government would do things differently and that Brown will destroy Blair’s “legacy” by halting Blair’s reforms. However, such an analysis ignores the influence and power Brown has held over the past 10 years.
- Brown has been the most influential Chancellor of the Exchequer. Often Blair does not even know what is in the budget.
- If you control the purse strings you control the policy.
- Brown has a dozen SpAds and support from institutions and organisations.
Brown is responsible for much of the political landscape of the past 10 years. By hook or by crook we will soon realise this too.
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Keeping an eye on Gordon Brown's quest for the top job in British politics.
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