Gordon Brown [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

It is nothing unusual for a modern British prime minister to be surrounded by jealous and manipulative rivals who are after his (or in the most striking instance her) job. The post is not, strictly speaking, a directly elected one like president of the United States or president of France. Following a general election, or occasionally the departure of the incumbent from office, the monarch summons the leader of the party with a majority in the Commons, or failing that the leader of another party that looks possibly able to form a government, and asks him or her to do so. Established practice in the matter is clear and always adhered to, but in the last resort it is a matter of convention not of statute.

So the trick is to become leader of the right party. Throughout the 20th century the dominant party was the Conservative party, which has a record of deposing its leaders worthy of imperial Rome. Since 1997 there now seems to be at least a serious possibility that it has lost its hegemony, and Labour has not had enough time in office through the mere 100 years of its existence for generalisations in this respect to be made with any confidence. The old Labour party was factious and fractious but never in the end did the deed. With Blair's electorally-dominant 'New' Labour I think we are waiting to see what happens this time. Blair effectively stole a march on Gordon Brown for the leadership, but there was apparently some sort of deal, or understanding at least, between them that he would, or might, or could possibly, hand over the premiership to Brown. What this deal amounted to depends on who you listen to. What is perfectly clear is that the current governance of Britain is characterised by intense partisan infighting between the two and their respective votaries. I'm quite sure it all loses nothing in the telling by the all-pervasive political commentators, but I'm just as sure that they are not inventing it. At a recent meeting of the parliamentary Labour party the mildest and most docile members lost patience and told the pair of them with scant respect or civility to stop the whole nonsense.

For this the upstarts deserve our thanks in more ways than one. In particular even those who routinely follow politics with some interest are suffering a severe overload of obsessional garrulity from the pundits, and I would personally attribute declining popular interest in political issues not least to that. This particular book is still warm off the presses and you can obtain it at remaindered prices already. I gather there are others on the same topic, and some are allegedly 'better', but for anyone whose tolerance stretches to one only this one will do not badly at the right price. The book sketches in Brown's background and makes a half-hearted attempt at explaining some facets of his personality on this basis. I imagine any reader's guess in that respect is as good as the author's. Here is a man with a compulsion to dominate but severely lacking in self-confidence, a man who wants the most public office in the land but who is secretive in a most peculiar way - attempts at finding anything embarrassing in sexual respects have come up with nothing and I would guess that the secretiveness is more a matter of hiding possible failures than anything of that sort. Where the book reads convincingly is in presenting a coherent picture of its subject. Whether the coherency has been purchased at some cost in over-simplification I couldn't say, but I should think almost certainly. The style is literate and easy to read despite some signs of haste, and the writer is clearly well informed. I would not expect him to give clues as to his sources in many cases, but he could have raised this book to another level entirely if he had marshalled his arguments more systematically. The book is replete with accounts of meetings that Mr Bower was not present at, and it regularly attributes thoughts, reactions and motivations to Brown that even his inmost coterie would have had to conjecture. What I would have liked Mr Bower to do would have been to show the basis and development of his own reasoning, how he weighs up this or that statement or piece of behaviour, and what differing degrees of confidence he has in coming to various conclusions. Presenting it all as fact detracts from the interest of the book as an analysis. Also the general picture begins to seem odd after a while. Throughout the book Blair is depicted almost entirely as giving way to Brown, and I would need some convincing of that. Another aspect that is partly welcome and partly unsatisfactory is the detail given of Brown's economic management. If there were quite as many gross errors as there seem to have been then he has been extremely lucky - by comparative standards, which are all we've got, this government has contrived to seem more competent than most in that respect.

The picture I ended with is of a man I wouldn't want as prime minister in his current frame of mind, seething with frustrations, harbouring obsessive grudges and full of unresolved contradictions. Whether achieving his final goal would exorcise some of these phantoms I can't tell. My guess before the recent general election would have been that Blair had decided to block him if he could, as 50 years ago Attlee made sure he blocked Morrison. My guess now is that Blair no longer can.