Inside the mind of Gordon Brown: Part 1 - An ambition too far

Of all the carefully spun presentational images we receive about our
leader, one thing that couldn't possibly be derived from the presented
imagery is that he's actually enjoying the job. No, to the casual
observer it does not look like he's comfortable being Prime Minister.

Of course, it is often suggested that immediately the cameras are
turned-off this awkward and self-conscious character is transformed
into pleasant, relaxed and amusing company. However, the lack of a
single grain of direct evidence of this leaves it rather difficult to
believe. Tales of bad-language, mobile phone throwing and crying
secretaries makes one doubt it further.

Brown's childhood is evident in his performance as Prime Minister;
most significantly in an absolute resolution never to admit fault.
Politico's will say, “Ahh, but one never does that in politics”.
However, Brown takes it to extremes. There's not an ounce of self-
deprecation anywhere to be seen in his personality and even when
confronted by journalists pursuing his flaws he remains repeating a
story of innocence from blame, even in the face of the blindingly
obvious. He must have learned to behave this way as a child while
being scalded by his parents and that's very odd considering that his
father was a man of the Church. Why would his father allow him to deny
his own faults? Very strange indeed

– there can only be more, or
perhaps less, to Gordon Brown's upbringing than meets the eye.

It is not at all uncommon for ambitious people to elevate themselves
into positions that turn-out to be different to their own earlier
vision of them. This is far from uncommon. In fact, it may well be
almost universally the case, as personal ambition is always a
subjective matter.

Most of us are limited by our opportunities. Perhaps these limits to
our opportunities are actually a good thing – preventing us from
stepping into things we really shouldn't. Without limits to
opportunity, what would you do? Would you exercise ambition in some
way? Yes, so would I. Would I live up to that ambition? Well, I like
to think so, but I don't know. But are there roles that I'm too wise
to take-on? Of course - and in these I fortunately have a choice not
to.

Political ambition is absolutely fundamental in Gordon Brown's
character. He has honed himself since youth to perform for his chosen
political audience and to believe and expect progress and success. So
honed is his character to politics that political behaviour has become
autonomic – he is now both political robot and thinking politician,
although there's debate about the relative proportions in which these
two characteristics apply.

A little disheveled and quite self-conscious before the cameras, its
curious to consider that Brown is also one for spectacular political
episode. His budget speeches were less economic analysis and planning
than pure politics, repeating endlessly how much more he would spend
than the Tories did and how much lower interests rates were under
Labour than under the Tories. Every budget speech was an attack on the
Tories – not really a proper budget speech at all. Ask any commentator
how much analysis of Brown's speeches was required to understand what
they really meant relative to the speeches of former Chancellors – a
lot more.

Brown's efforts at spectacular political episode can extend into
flamboyant political manoeuvre - and so it was with 10p Tax. What
possible judgement could there have been for abolishing 10p tax, other
than to facilitate the grandstand of reducing the basic rate of income
tax under the noses of the Tories? He knew that the poorest in society
would pay more tax

but he wanted to ride a white charger into the
House of Commons, to sleigh Cameron with a tax cut, then to charge off
with Cameron's severed head held high, towards a snap election. It
was such images of heroism that his ambition must have held while he
despised Blair's premiership. So its vanity - that's what it must be
that's in the mind of Gordon Brown. He knew, he was sure, how to do
the job better and he never respected Blair's leadership.

The personal investment he has made in his political ambition is total
– there is nothing in this world that's more important to him or in
which he's invested more. It was many years ago that he jumped aboard
the roller-coaster of a political career and his years of commitment
to it makes it very difficult to get off.

The roller-coaster analogy is rather a good one for Brown's New Labour
experience. Brown committed himself to a course that would ultimately
lead to opportunity to become Prime Minister and an expectation upon
him to pick-up that mantle from some of his peers, from his ego and
from his vanity. He made that commitment years ago while he didn't
have to deal with the reality of the Premiership – Blair took care of
that. Events like the decision on Iraq didn't demand Brown burned his
political capital on it – he sat quietly and keep his powder dry.
Student top-up fees wouldn't hurt Brown either – life in No 11 was
easy. So, for years, the roller-coaster track was comfortable for
Brown. He held high-office during historically benign economic
circumstances. It was the easiest job in politics for more than a
generation – the smoothest roller-coaster one could wish for.

If Brown was a wise man he'd now be retired - writing books and
earning millions on the lecture tour as “the most successful
Chancellor we've ever had”. He would today be our favourite celebrity
politician and there'd be a crescendo of calls for him to return to
help us with the credit-crunch (“a problem that started overseas”).
But his wisdom would keep him away – always leave them wanting more,
as they say in entertainment circles.

But that's not a life Brown will ever know. Brown was undone by his
ambition. He wanted No 10 - Blair had made it look easy. It also
looked easy to him in the many years of visualising himself as Prime
Minister and considering how he would perform in the job. Everybody in
the PLP who never really wanted Blair would accept Brown in No 10, so
it happened.

Brown appears an unlucky Prime Minister to all but those who say “you
make your own luck”. The nation may be divided upon whether he's
unlucky or hapless, but not upon him being either one or the other.
The roller-coaster is now a white-knuckle ride and every terrifying
second of it hammers another nail in the coffin of his reputation.

One very clear difference between Brown and Blair is that Blair
surrounded himself with a competent team.

Blair could delegate and was
collegiate (with a few notable and disgraceful exceptions). However,
Brown cant delegate and has got rid of many competent people. People
who cant delegate and don't want competent colleagues around them are
insecure in their own abilities, that's why they don't want competent
people around them. Blair was collegiate but Brown feels a need to be
competitive with his colleagues. Mandelson is the most competent
politician Brown has bought in. But Mandelson's return from Europe
wasn't Brown's preference, it was done out of desperate necessity to
fend-off a challenge from the Blairites.

Brown would never have been a successful Prime Minister – he couldn't
cope with either the big decisions or the twenty-four-seven scrutiny
of the media. However, the most significant reason is that, as you
know already, he's just not likeable enough to win an election. But
what is likeable? Most of us don't think about it, but its really a
kind of intuition about somebody from obvious things and from a
multitude of unconscious signals too. There can be lots of things we
don't know about people, but we know quite quickly whether or not we
like them. We don't like Brown because the signals he gives us infer
things about him that we don't respect.

So why does he give us those signals? He does it because of the
internal conflict he has in coping with his true capacity to do his
job. Similarly, while he was Chancellor he didn't succeed because he
knew a lot about economics - he didn't really know his job very well
then, he was just lucky.

And what that uncertainty in himself does,
while he's inevitably trying to hide it, influences his whole being;
personality, body-image, everything – (ultimately health too).

Brown's ambition to be Prime Minister at any cost robbed himself of a
glorious retirement from the Chancellorship. It was an ambition too
far. It transformed a wonderfully lucky period in No 11, which had
opened doors to all sorts of things at home and abroad, into career
fiasco.

Of course, not everything about Brown's personality is negative. He is
driven by principal, and social justice figures prominently in that
principal. Social justice is a very good thing. However, the practical
application of his subjective concept of social justice

is where the
psychopathology of Gordon Brown is most evident, as I'll be explaining
later in “Inside the mind of Gordon Brown: Part 2 - Is the Prime
Minister Mad?”

"aracari" <spamtrap at (no spam) váilable.here.com> wrote in message

news:64d30eaec8bb2d209a37c99ed3cdee52 at (no spam) aracari.127.0.0.1...
(snipped)

I put the mess that is Brown down to his childhood upbringing,
his ambitious arrogance. I also include that he is an entrenched
socialist in the Stalinist mould. Such people are not known to
accept criticism of their incompetence or questioning of their
policies.

And now wants to introduce World Government through the Tobin Tax at the
Copentalkfest.

Inside the mind of Gordon Brown: Part 1 - An ambition too far

Of all the carefully spun presentational images we receive about our
leader, one thing that couldn't possibly be derived from the presented
imagery is that he's actually enjoying the job. No, to the casual
observer it does not look like he's comfortable being Prime Minister.

Of course, it is often suggested that immediately the cameras are
turned-off this awkward and self-conscious character is transformed
into pleasant, relaxed and amusing company. However, the lack of a
single grain of direct evidence of this leaves it rather difficult to
believe. Tales of bad-language, mobile phone throwing and crying
secretaries makes one doubt it further.

Brown's childhood is evident in his performance as Prime Minister;
most significantly in an absolute resolution never to admit fault.
Politico's will say, “Ahh, but one never does that in politics�.
However, Brown takes it to extremes. There's not an ounce of self-
deprecation anywhere to be seen in his personality and even when
confronted by journalists pursuing his flaws he remains repeating a
story of innocence from blame, even in the face of the blindingly
obvious. He must have learned to behave this way as a child while
being scalded by his parents and that's very odd considering that his
father was a man of the Church. Why would his father allow him to deny
his own faults? Very strange indeed – there can only be more, or
perhaps less, to Gordon Brown's upbringing than meets the eye.

It is not at all uncommon for ambitious people to elevate themselves
into positions that turn-out to be different to their own earlier
vision of them. This is far from uncommon. In fact, it may well be
almost universally the case, as personal ambition is always a
subjective matter.

Most of us are limited by our opportunities. Perhaps these limits to
our opportunities are actually a good thing – preventing us from
stepping into things we really shouldn't. Without limits to
opportunity, what would you do? Would you exercise ambition in some
way? Yes, so would I. Would I live up to that ambition? Well, I like
to think so, but I don't know. But are there roles that I'm too wise
to take-on? Of course - and in these I fortunately have a choice not
to.

Political ambition is absolutely fundamental in Gordon Brown's
character. He has honed himself since youth to perform for his chosen
political audience and to believe and expect progress and success. So
honed is his character to politics that political behaviour has become
autonomic – he is now both political robot and thinking politician,
although there's debate about the relative proportions in which these
two characteristics apply.

A little disheveled and quite self-conscious before the cameras, its
curious to consider that Brown is also one for spectacular political
episode. His budget speeches were less economic analysis and planning
than pure politics, repeating endlessly how much more he would spend
than the Tories did and how much lower interests rates were under
Labour than under the Tories. Every budget speech was an attack on the
Tories – not really a proper budget speech at all. Ask any commentator
how much analysis of Brown's speeches was required to understand what
they really meant relative to the speeches of former Chancellors – a
lot more.

Brown's efforts at spectacular political episode can extend into
flamboyant political manoeuvre - and so it was with 10p Tax. What
possible judgement could there have been for abolishing 10p tax, other
than to facilitate the grandstand of reducing the basic rate of income
tax under the noses of the Tories? He knew that the poorest in society
would pay more tax but he wanted to ride a white charger into the
House of Commons, to sleigh Cameron with a tax cut, then to charge off
with Cameron's severed head held high, towards a snap election. It
was such images of heroism that his ambition must have held while he
despised Blair's premiership. So its vanity - that's what it must be
that's in the mind of Gordon Brown. He knew, he was sure, how to do
the job better and he never respected Blair's leadership.

The personal investment he has made in his political ambition is total
– there is nothing in this world that's more important to him or in
which he's invested more. It was many years ago that he jumped aboard
the roller-coaster of a political career and his years of commitment
to it makes it very difficult to get off.

The roller-coaster analogy is rather a good one for Brown's New Labour
experience. Brown committed himself to a course that would ultimately
lead to opportunity to become Prime Minister and an expectation upon
him to pick-up that mantle from some of his peers, from his ego and
from his vanity. He made that commitment years ago while he didn't
have to deal with the reality of the Premiership – Blair took care of
that. Events like the decision on Iraq didn't demand Brown burned his
political capital on it – he sat quietly and keep his powder dry.
Student top-up fees wouldn't hurt Brown either – life in No 11 was
easy. So, for years, the roller-coaster track was comfortable for
Brown. He held high-office during historically benign economic
circumstances. It was the easiest job in politics for more than a
generation – the smoothest roller-coaster one could wish for.

If Brown was a wise man he'd now be retired - writing books and
earning millions on the lecture tour as “the most successful
Chancellor we've ever had�. He would today be our favourite celebrity
politician and there'd be a crescendo of calls for him to return to
help us with the credit-crunch (“a problem that started overseas�).
But his wisdom would keep him away – always leave them wanting more,
as they say in entertainment circles.

But that's not a life Brown will ever know. Brown was undone by his
ambition. He wanted No 10 - Blair had made it look easy. It also
looked easy to him in the many years of visualising himself as Prime
Minister and considering how he would perform in the job. Everybody in
the PLP who never really wanted Blair would accept Brown in No 10, so
it happened.

Brown appears an unlucky Prime Minister to all but those who say “you
make your own luck�. The nation may be divided upon whether he's
unlucky or hapless, but not upon him being either one or the other.
The roller-coaster is now a white-knuckle ride and every terrifying
second of it hammers another nail in the coffin of his reputation.

One very clear difference between Brown and Blair is that Blair
surrounded himself with a competent team. Blair could delegate and was
collegiate (with a few notable and disgraceful exceptions). However,
Brown cant delegate and has got rid of many competent people. People
who cant delegate and don't want competent colleagues around them are
insecure in their own abilities, that's why they don't want competent
people around them. Blair was collegiate but Brown feels a need to be
competitive with his colleagues. Mandelson is the most competent
politician Brown has bought in. But Mandelson's return from Europe
wasn't Brown's preference, it was done out of desperate necessity to
fend-off a challenge from the Blairites.

Brown would never have been a successful Prime Minister – he couldn't
cope with either the big decisions or the twenty-four-seven scrutiny
of the media. However, the most significant reason is that, as you
know already, he's just not likeable enough to win an election. But
what is likeable? Most of us don't think about it, but its really a
kind of intuition about somebody from obvious things and from a
multitude of unconscious signals too. There can be lots of things we
don't know about people, but we know quite quickly whether or not we
like them. We don't like Brown because the signals he gives us infer
things about him that we don't respect.

So why does he give us those signals? He does it because of the
internal conflict he has in coping with his true capacity to do his
job. Similarly, while he was Chancellor he didn't succeed because he
knew a lot about economics - he didn't really know his job very well
then, he was just lucky. And what that uncertainty in himself does,
while he's inevitably trying to hide it, influences his whole being;
personality, body-image, everything – (ultimately health too).

Brown's ambition to be Prime Minister at any cost robbed himself of a
glorious retirement from the Chancellorship. It was an ambition too
far. It transformed a wonderfully lucky period in No 11, which had
opened doors to all sorts of things at home and abroad, into career
fiasco.

Of course, not everything about Brown's personality is negative. He is
driven by principal, and social justice figures prominently in that
principal. Social justice is a very good thing. However, the practical
application of his subjective concept of social justice is where the
psychopathology of Gordon Brown is most evident, as I'll be explaining
later in “Inside the mind of Gordon Brown: Part 2 - Is the Prime
Minister Mad?�

I put the mess that is Brown down to his childhood upbringing,
his ambitious arrogance. I also include that he is an entrenched
socialist in the Stalinist mould. Such people are not known to
accept criticism of their incompetence or questioning of their
policies.

"aracari" <spamtrap at (no spam) váilable.here.com> wrote in message
news:64d30eaec8bb2d209a37c99ed3cdee52 at (no spam) aracari.127.0.0.1...
(snipped)
I put the mess that is Brown down to his childhood upbringing,
his ambitious arrogance. I also include that he is an entrenched
socialist in the Stalinist mould. Such people are not known to
accept criticism of their incompetence or questioning of their
policies.


And now wants to introduce World Government through the Tobin Tax at the
Copentalkfest.

Afaics, Brown is incapable of speaking the truth about anything.

"aracari" <spamtrap at (no spam) váilable.here.com> wrote in message
news:4f9ee70b136819fa6dd17e0f291413a2 at (no spam) aracari.127.0.0.1...
(snipped)

Afaics, Brown is incapable of speaking the truth about anything.

# Yes, but it seems to be the norm of political life around the world at
the moment. No shootings of leaders for deliberate lying. And yet the
standards would improve overnight the world over if there a public riot that
led to shooting some of them for lying and incompetence.

Makes me wonder about how Churchill would be regarded today if he was
exposed to the media criticism over his intolerance of a German leader who
led them out of poverty. I wonder who's side they would take today.

"aracari" <spamtrap at (no spam) váilable.here.com> wrote in message

news:64d30eaec8bb2d209a37c99ed3cdee52 at (no spam) aracari.127.0.0.1...
(snipped)

I put the mess that is Brown down to his childhood upbringing,
his ambitious arrogance. I also include that he is an entrenched
socialist in the Stalinist mould. Such people are not known to
accept criticism of their incompetence or questioning of their
policies.

And now wants to introduce World Government through the Tobin Tax at the
Copentalkfest.

I have noticed the global drift in recent times towards nutjob
policies...(snipped)

"aracari" <spamtrap at (no spam) v?ilable.here.com> wrote in message
news:0aedf12bc0621a18b415073fc9683756 at (no spam) aracari.127.0.0.1...
(snipped)
I have noticed the global drift in recent times towards nutjob
policies...(snipped)


# Nutjob policies always are preceded by nutjob people. It can't evolve any
other way.

You say 'recent times' for your revelation. Mine started when I read a BBC
story years ago about a monument to the erected somewhere up the Thames at
Richmond. It was to commemorate the Dunkirk Evacuation with the Small
Ships...all those little boats that went over to get the men off the beach
and into the bigger ships in deeper water. The monument had words
describing the bravery of the men who did it..which led to the eventual
defeat of Germany.
I was astounded to read there was objection to the wording because German
tourists would be upset at being regarded as losers! I couldn't believe
it. I thought it was a joke statement some students had set up for rag
week.

Then I found it was true and my whole mental furniture regarding British
people changed in an instant. The British people had changed and lost it's
memory. They were being sensitive about German tourists and not about the
bravery of their own men...some who were still alive.

It seems Brown is a product of that lost-memory generation...along with all
the others fiddling their expenses and thinking it normal.
Can you imagine any of them operating as functioning humans in a civil war
they will have to face sometime.
*********************************************