The Second Draft of "Gordon Brown - A History"

I have been almost overwhelmed by the deluge of articles and books and programmes about Gordon Brown's years at Number Ten. What strikes me about them all is that the narrative is unambiguous; Brown was a brute and a disaster, and he created a toxic atmosphere at the top of Government, mediated by indecision, lack of a coherent plan and a severe personality disorder. Worth looking at in this context is the current BBC radio series The Brown Years, a remarkably frank account. Of course there have been a few books, most of them utter bollocks - even Mandelson admits he could never have written about what really went on.

According to the radio piece, Brown's decline begins with the election that never was. This was a massive strategic blunder, from an administration which appears to have placed political expediency above running the country. Brown was getting daily, even hourly polling and focus group results, and it is implied that all decision-making was predicated on them. His press conference, immediately after calling off the election was egregious. Brown was unable to give a convincing reason why he was doing so, and consequently looked weak and shifty.

At the Downing Street press conference after the election that never was, Brown was asked why he could not admit that the election was called off because he thought he might lose. His answer tells you all you need to know;

But that's not correct, Nick. (A big lie) ..my first instinct was always  to keep on with the business of governing, to set out my vision of what the country should be like for the future

Unfortunately, Brown's vision never surfaced. There never was one. The insider narrative is unanimous on this point, and it is crucial. There was no compass, moral or otherwise. His only means of navigation was the retrospective view of a fickle voting sample, and it appears that major policy decisions were made and unmade purely according to polling data. Hardly what you would call a vision, is it?