Gordon Brown bullying furore is just a sideshow

By Mary Riddell Published: 6:39AM GMT twenty-three February 2010

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Gordon Brown has denied bullying his staff Photo: Carl De Souza / AFP

Politics is a strike sport. Foreign forums, from the Russian Duma to the Alabama state senate, have mostly been enlivened by punch-ups. In Taiwan, MPs used to theatre feign brawls in sequence to curry foster with an citizens that favourite the politicians to be tough. Back home, the former Cabinet apportion Richard Crossman once flattened a co-worker in a Commons corridor. More recently, John Prescott acquired good status by thumping a man who had thrown an egg at him. In this company, Gordon Brown is the peculiar man out. The Prime Minister has never strike anyone.

His denials of earthy assault have, however, finished small to lessen the idea that No 10 is a complicated Babylon, in that Mr Brown plays Nebuchadnezzar to his humble staff. This satire has been built on the identical tiwn pillars of a new book by the publisher Andrew Rawnsley, and by revelations granted by the National Bullying Helpline.

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While ministers and No 10 staffers credit Mr Rawnsley of being wrong on a little (or many) details, couple of brawl his broader design of tragedy at the heart of government. As one of the PM"s closest ministerial colleagues says: "Of march there is a little things I recognise." The Rawnsley comment has to illustrate far mostly centred on the unwholesome meridian at the underside of Mr Brown"s reign when, as an additional comparison apportion tells me, "Gordon was infirm with ire at himself for being incompetent to lift things together."

The second dart to Mr Brown comes from Christine Pratt, whose bullying helpline has, she alleges, been contacted by an vague series of No 10 employees concerned about their workplace culture. Disobliging questions are being raised, not slightest about purported links in between Ms Pratt"s gift and a blurb group run by her husband.

Any unsettled Downing Street help competence have remarkable the entrance on the Charity Commission website, recording that the helpline"s 2008 accounts are a little 200 days overdue. More relevantly, the gift has been challenged about the avowal that: "We have a transparent remoteness policy. We do not share your sum with anyone."

The avowal has been criticised by Ann Widdecombe, one of the charity"s congregation who have right away resigned. At this rate, the event competence infer a larger annoyance to David Cameron, writer of a intense online covenant to the helpline, than to Mr Brown.

But the bullying furore, though overblown, is not negligible. It"s as well uncomplicated (though true) to contend that, in the deficiency of any torpedo item or any plea to his leadership, Mr Brown can difficult this one out, with polls putting him usually 6 points at the back of a flailing Mr Cameron, and even Lord Heseltine notice that the Tories are streamer for a hung parliament.

Equally, it is as well rudimentary to paint a mimic of an invincible oppressor whose robe of thumping the car chair strikes apprehension in to the timorous violets of his insurance corps. While bullying is never to be condoned, the examples on suggest are some-more expected to code Mr Brown as Violet Elizabeth Bott than Emperor Nero.

No one has any disbelief that the PM possesses the sort of fury that competence aver his proxy ostracism from a hothouse class. It is ideally probable to suppose him drifting in to such a fury at the awaiting of saying European ambassadors that he yelled: "Why are you creation me encounter these f------ people?" I"m certain he did have use of those words, or something similar. The subject is because the recipients of such outbursts are, in the main, so unresentful.

Some would presupposition they are punch-drunk. In fact, nonetheless a couple of comparison Cabinet ministers have grown to be vexed or even depreciate Mr Brown, majority staff and colleagues possibly honestly admire him or at slightest cruise him value the pain. He is not only, they say, "sharp, intelligent, impressive", he is additionally someone with "generosity of spirit". As a maestro of despondency in all the forms, he can sorrow with the trouble of others. "He can be really kind, and really sweet," one co-worker says.

Such endorsements are, however, doubtful to cut majority ice between those citizens to whom the infamous ways of Westminster appear ever some-more bizarre. An citizens scholastic in open toleration is entitled to be horrified if those it elected, and their retinues, have the Borgias see blander than the expel of Hollyoaks.

While majority of Mr Rawnsley"s examples of strychnine governing body are historical, the enlightenment of The Thick of It stays embedded. Maggie Darling competence have less cause, these days, to censure the enemies lecture opposite her husband, but old rifts are tough to heal. On the alternative hand, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O"Donnell, has belatedly done it transparent that he never lifted concerns with Mr Brown about staff treatment, so undermining the juiciest story in the Rawnsley comment and the final by Mr Cameron and Nick Clegg for an inquiry.

Despite a little bona fide concerns, the stream outcry is a sideshow. Just as it is no tip that Mr Brown has an bomb temper, it is viewable that he is the budding plant of his tantrums. Despite visit (and mostly trivial) eruptions, the bulk of his fury has been destined inwards, at his own inabilities to scold the nation"s problems and daub in to the heart.

Mr Brown bears meagre similarity to a text bully. There is zero premeditated, or on purpose unkind, in the bursts of disappointment that can infrequently be assuaged by Lord Mandelson or braver aides. But who dares discuss it Mr Brown that his annoy is a pointer not of strength but of weakness?

I would theory that, were the PM to review Mr Rawnsley"s book, he would be less abashed of his spats than of the handicapped decisions dictated, in part, by his temperament. For example, his panicked preference to try to compare the Tories" estate taxation wheeze, rather than job their steep and holding an election, right away looks similar to folly. One wishes, too, that the spleen allegedly vented on underlings could have been destined at the over-mighty security services, who right away mount indicted of complicity not in bullying but in torture.

Mr Brown, as well as being spasmodic as well rough, is additionally guilty of the larger sin of being as well timid. Despite these flaws, he has affianced to put "character" at the heart of his choosing campaign. He should be wary: impression in a statesman is a relations virtue. Tony Blair, though pleasant to typists, had couple of qualms about subjecting the Iraqi proletariat to the hairdryer diagnosis and worse.

Voters have a right to know that their leaders are not charlatans or crooks. Beyond that, Mr Brown"s multiple of rightness and crossness competence be his own business, but for the laser lamp of the complicated media and the pre-election debates that will gleam the strongest spotlight ever on the antagonists.

Mr Brown can win on policy. He can also, if he chooses, give Labour citizens what they want, since Mr Cameron cannot, on issues trimming from Europe to the economy, prove his party"s manifold demands. When it comes to character, Mr Cameron is as well stretchable in his credo, whilst Mr Brown is as well unbending.

Ironically, he had usually proposed to relax, reassured that his soul-baring talk with Piers Morgan had at last struck a chord with voters. Mr Brown, far from being a monster, displays extremes of affability and intemperance. It is a reverence to his doggedness, his willpower, his essential element and his non-static appeal that he is still in this choosing with a chance.

Mr Rawnsley"s book was predicated on Mr Brown"s imminent nemesis a unfolding that the PM has wanting to deliver. The attacks of this week end are far from deadly for Labour"s Houdini. He could even, if he chooses, spin them to his advantage. As one wiser apportion says: "You don"t get to be PM by being a modulated human being. But there has to be a vehement account about who Gordon is curmudgeonly, somewhat off the wall, but still a visionary."

Can Mr Brown confront his limitations? We shall see. His disappointment on Sunday that the BBC was heading on the bullying story rather than his fightback suggests that he is still blaming others for his woes. It is over time for the majority formidable statesman of his age to take the recommendation of the Cabinet part of who urges him: "Live with who you are."

But as the polls point to the rebirth of Gordon Brown, it is usually probable that Britain will additionally have to live with the fickle personality for longer than the doubters ever imagined.