"For the first time in his life, Gordon Brown was obliged to
perform gracefully. He was forced to present himself not just as a finance minister, but as a national leader.
He needed to present himself not only as a desiccated calculating machine, but also as a fully paid-up member of the human race.
And he didn't do badly at all! He smiled a great deal more than usual, and some of these smiles seemed natural. His speech contained a number of daring and interesting ideas."
But, in an interesting article, Oborne goes on to describe the 'two sides' of Brown based on interviews for a Dispatches programme on Monday:
"As our research progressed, one fact became utterly clear: there are two Gordon Browns. On the one side there is a man of overwhelming private charm and kindness...Again and again, we were told how charming and engaging Gordon Brown is in private, of his concern and engagement with others....Brown is a complex character, but tellingly its the 'private' side which is so overwhelmingly positive, the side so few people know of. You can't be Chancellor for 10 years and not make political enemies - the people he has upset have not been backward in contributing to the picture of a dour vengeful politician. The surprising thing, given Brown's reputation as a 'tough' Chancellor, is not that there are civil servants and career politicians he has fallen out with (or who have fallen out with him), but that there are not more of them.
And yet there were others who offered us equally convincing accounts of a contradictory side of Gordon Brown. They told us how he could regularly snub and humiliate those who threatened or crossed him in any way. He was a man capable of showing an incredible indifference to people...
And yet, at the same, we heard accounts of the Chancellor's receptiveness to ideas and great warmth to outsiders, which contradicted the numerous and authoritative accounts of his rudeness."
No comments:
Post a Comment