THE MAKING OF A PRIME MINISTER

In a sense, Brown's handlers are right. For a politician (and unlike his colleague-rival-friend-nemesis Tony Blair) Brown has never been a good actor and dissembler.

When he has tried to appear chummy and voter-friendly, it has never quite erased the impression of the dour and spiky Scot; when he has been displeased it is all-too-obvious in the beetle-browed glower and in extremes there are volcanic eruptions.

Yet close friends have a different story of a sociable and matey Gordon Brown, who can be relaxed, good-humoured, fond of a joke and is now a doting family man.

I have always found him a generous, if sometimes cautious friend. When I won a bottle of whisky signed by James Callaghan and Tony Blair, my wife (a student of history) said it would make a fine heirloom if it were signed by three Labour Prime Ministers. During the 2005 general election, with Blair still firmly in charge, I asked him to autograph the label, which he did after some hesitation. But he added: "If it doesn't happen, you can always drink the whisky ..."

The new Prime Minister is a much-changed man from the Brown of five or ten years ago. Marriage, then fatherhood and tragedy have softened and humanised the famously-grim politician.

He is clearly a complex character and that character becomes more fascinating and more significant with his accession to the Premiership. Foreign governments will all have had their experts observing and preparing psycho-profiles of the new occupant of Number Ten – and good luck to them.

There is also the fascination with personality in modern media-driven politics where flaws, characteristics and quirks are seized upon as having momentous effect.

But was there ever a front-rank politician who was ‘normal’? Do they not have to be out-of-the-ordinary to put themselves in the public front-line? Does it not take an unusual mentality for them to believe they can change the world?

Notoriously, Brown was described from within the Blair enclave as ‘psychologically flawed’. Whether it was Peter Mandelson or Alastair Campbell who coined the phrase does not matter; it was richly ironic coming from either of those two with their own bizarre mental make-ups.

Enigma

None of which changes the fact that, to many, Brown is an enigma. National and foreign media teams, from the right-wing London press to Al Jazeera and European religious TV, have been descending on Kirkcaldy in recent weeks. They all ask the same question: What makes this man tick?

The Gordon Brown who will achieve his ultimate political goal at the age of 56 is a product of a particular time, place and people, an uncommon family and life-events that were bound to have a deep psychological impact.

There is no sense that Kirkcaldy, the sprawling ‘Lang Toon’ on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth feels the ‘hand of history’ on its shoulder as its native son becomes Prime Minister and its most famous product since linoleum and Adam Smith.

We Fifers refuse to be impressed by titles and prestige. It is not just a case of ‘we kent his faither’ (which they did for 13 years); it is also ‘we’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns’ or, as my grandfather impressed on me: “The erse may be hinging oot yer breeks, but yer as guid as any other b*****’.

As a lifelong fan of Raith Rovers, he attends games at Stark's Park whenever he can and suffers like any other supporter. When he tried to talk tactits with the manager, the nononsense John McGlynn told him: "Let's come to an agreement. I won't tell you how to manage the country - and you won't tell me how to manage Raith Rovers!"

And we pride ourselves on being ‘different’ from other Scots; for different read ‘more difficult’. The county is almost a peninsula lying between the Firths of Forth and Tay and revels in its separate status as  ‘The Kingdom’.

One characteristic is that of being ‘thrawn’, a word for which there is no real English equivalent – ‘stubborn’ comes near, in Fife it is more cross-grained and defiant.  Fifers will always remember a good turn but never forget (and rarely forgive) a bad turn; they make good friends and bad enemies. There are those in British politics who will recognise that trait …

From the age of three to sixteen, Brown grew up in a once-confident and thriving industrial town that had fallen on hard times. Kirkcaldy was ringed by the deep pits of one of Scotland’s richest coalfields stretching far out under the sea, its linoleum factories were world-famous and jobs were guaranteed in engineering factories, linen mills, granaries, furniture-makers and a bustling shopping centre. The ‘toon’ developed a sprawl as the biggest post-war council house-building programme outside Glasgow and Edinburgh was rushed through.

In the 50s and 60s, pit closures - hastened by economic force, Government and underground disasters – hit the town hard and the only coal-winning was by deprived families, picking sea-coal on the blackened beaches. As fitted carpet and vinyl came into fashion, one by one the linoleum factories closed their gates and the ‘queer-like smell’ of linseed oil, cork and paint disappeared; now, only one floorcloth factory survives under Dutch ownership making a luxury product.

When he was in the West Primary School in Kirkcaldy, I was a local junior reporter. Decades later, as a front-bench Opposition spokesman, he showed how that background had shaped him by reminding me: "You were there. You remember Kirkcaldy in the '50s and '60s. The jobs were going in linoleum, engineering and mining and there was still slum housing.

"What influences me isn't what happens at Westminster. It's what is happening in Fife and what I see around me, what my fellow- Fifers tell me, when I go home every week.

“Representing people I grew up with means I will never lose touch with these roots. The thread that runs though my life is totally consistent.”

Christian Socialist?

Right until his death, his father, Rev John E Brown, the minister of St Brycedale's Kirk, would never reveal how he voted - even though Gordon was desperate to find out. But I can testify that he was a living example of Christian Socialist action, before the term had ever been coined.

I owed him a personal debt of gratitude because, as a hapless cub sent to cover Kirkcaldy Presbytery, after a weary day he would take the time patiently to explain the arcane deliberations of the ministers and elders.

His first charge was amid the tenement slums and wretchedness of post-war bomb-damaged Govan (John and James Gordon, the first two sons of Rev. John and his wife Jessie were born in Glasgow) and the Clydeside Kirk was a forcing-ground for radical young churchmen who welded Presbyterian duty with social conscience.

He was described by a distinguished former Moderator of the Kirk as ‘an able preacher and a superb pastor, distinguished by selfless concern for those committed to his care’.

The first time I saw the future Chancellor (although I could not know it at the time) was on a dark, wet windy night when the spring tides poured over the seawall and flooded the low-lying homes in the Linktown district. Rev. John and his schoolboy sons were among those who came to the aid of the poor families in the slummier district. It was a typical living sermon of values-in-action.

Down-and-outs and hard-up families knew to go to the back-door of the manse in the belt-tightening days of the Fifties and Sixties in Kirkcaldy and never left empty-handed.

The story is told of how his parents came home on day to find young Gordon sitting at the kitchen table with the town’s most notorious house-breaker; while they discreetly went to check the silverware, their son explained he was only taking food.

He explained years later: “Being brought up as the son of a minister made me aware of community responsibilities that any decent society ought to practice. I had been taught to invite people in and tell them to help themselves to whatever food was on the table. In any case, we didn’t have much to lose in the way of valuables …”

For his mother, being the minister’s wife was itself a full-time job: “Lots of people came knocking on the door, some begging for money or  a cup of tea, others with psychological or social problems. They had all been hit hard.”

In the Kirkcaldy manse, prayers were said before meals, debate was encouraged although the father’s views were dominant, Sunday papers were not read until Monday and church attendance was an unquestioned duty. Although he might not admit it, being a son of the manse must sometimes have been tiresome because higher standards were expected from ‘the meenister’s laddies’.

The boys earned their pocket money, selling evening papers around the town and programmes at Raith Rovers’ ground to gain free entry at half-time. They held tuck-shop sales in the garage of the manse in aid of refugees and, on a rackety duplicating machine, he and older brother John produced The Gazette ‘Scotland's only newspaper sold in aid of African refugees’ sold for three pence through the youth fellowship.

John was editor and publisher while 12-year-old Gordon was sports reporter and wrote high-minded opinion columns. They had a ‘world scoop’ when Gordon wrote to Colonel John Glenn, hero of America’s first space flight, with a series of questions on what it was like to orbit the earth and what the future held.

There was a suggestion of Gordon’s own future when he dismissed Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan as ‘ too old for this responsible job’ at the age of 69 and predicting power would move to ‘younger men like Harold Wilson and Edward Heath’.

Manifesto

Writing what could be his manifesto for 40 years later, he also called for ‘a strong and reliable government to promote our interests in Europe and the World ….a less casual government that must take drastic measures in solving our unemployment, economic, transport and local government problems … our status today leaves much to be desired … I conclude we can, indeed must, have a more dynamic government …"

The budding politician delivered Labour Party leaflets, was allowed to sit up late listening to General Election results and on a family holiday in Perthshire followed the 1963 Kinross and West Perthshire by-election, staged to allow Sir Alec Douglas-Home to become Prime Minister. The 12-year-old’s verdict: “I soon saw through the tricks the politicians got up to. I thought it was awful.”

He was just as precocious at school, passing nine O-levels at 14 and a year later achieving five grade ‘A’ Highers and was first choice for an experimental ‘fast track’ scheme for precocious pupils introduced by the Fife education service. The experiment was abandoned after it was seen to put too much pressure on young minds but Brown sailed through and was at Edinburgh University at the age of 16. Big brother John would introduce him: “This is my younger brother – boring but bloody clever.”

It was then that personal disaster struck the teenage prodigy and put his brilliant future in doubt.

Playing wing forward in a rugby match between the School First XV and Old Boys, he went down on the ball and took a kick on the head in a loose scrum. He played on, but felt something was wrong – ‘it was the last game of rugby I ever played’. The problems with his eyesight worsened and in his first week at university, he was diagnosed as having detached retinas.

He lost the sight in his left eye and the other was saved, with some impairment, after  five years of operations, the last of which was the riskiest because it might have resulted in complete blindness.

The effect of long periods spent in total darkness and uncertainty upon the character of an active teenager, who was a voracious reader and had dreams of becoming a professional sportsman, can only be guessed at.

He described it as ‘living torture’ and says it forced him to re-focus his life on other goals. Impatience with delay and time-wasting and an urgency to get things done are understandable when you have learned the hard way that life can be cruel and, as he says: “When one route closes to you, you’ve got to think very clearly about the routes opening and decide that some things have to be more important than others.”

Poignantly, the first sermon in a book of his father’s preaching is titled ‘Our need of vision’. Written with a father’s obvious feeling, it says: “Blindness is surely one of life’s sorest handicaps. Those who are deprived of sight miss much. For them, vistas of loveliness are shut off and bring no joy and gladness.”

When he returned to Edinburgh University, Gordon Brown’s impetus was unstoppable. The long-haired under-graduate living in an untidy flat in Marchmont raced through the academic work and made history by challenging the Edinburgh establishment, becoming Rector of Edinburgh University at 23, and presiding over one of the most turbulent periods in the ancient university’s history. His campaign had its light-hearted moments, thanks to pretty girl supporters known as ‘Brown’s Sugars’ and their ‘Gordon for Me’ T-shirts.

Lesson

Early in his student life, his mother had to march him into the Bank of Scotland at the top of the Mound to sort out his overdraft, a lesson in debt that the future Chancellor never forgot.

After university, jobs as a lecturer and a programme producer at STV were stopgaps while he completed his PhD thesis on ‘The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918-29’ and found a winnable seat. Politically, it was not time wasted; he edited the Red Paper with radical policies for Scotland (not all of which her would now support) and campaigned for a ‘Yes’ vote on devolution.

During that 1979 devolution campaign, he described the Scottish National Party as ‘dishonest … the extremists and wreckers who want to break up Britain’. The same rhetoric was repeated as recently as this year’s Holyrood election, so at least he has been consistent.

At the same period, as member of the Scottish Labour executive, alliances were forged with the unions north of the border – and long-lasting enmities developed with Robin Cook, George Galloway and others. The union contacts made him a shoo-in for the reorganised Dunfermline East Constituency which he won in the 1983 election with a thumping majority of 11,301, although it was a bitter victory as Labour were humiliated nationally, thanks to Michael Foot and the hard Left manifesto that was ‘the longest suicide note in history’.

Moving into a cramped office in the Palace of Westminster, he found himself sharing with another newcomer, Tony Blair. He quickly realised Blair was ’quite clever’, gave his office-mate a crash course in snappy press releases and TV interview techniques, discussed the need for a ‘New Labour’ and they quickly became known as ‘the blood brothers’.

His maiden speech in the Commons had an immediate impact. Waiting for a debate on social security, he machined-gunned the Tory ministers with unpublished statistics showing how, under them, unemployment and poverty had ravaged his constituency – ‘a new arithmetic of depression and despair’. 

It set a pattern because from then on Brown became known for his mysterious ability to get his hands on leaked documents damaging to the government. As political editor of the Daily Record, I worked with him on his weekly column and quickly came to realise when it was Gordon’s own polished work and when he had been too busy and given Charlie Whelan (who was no writer) the outline to work on.

When John Smith succeeded Kinnock and appointed Brown Shadow Chancellor, his first act was to scrap Smith’s own Shadow Budget and there were times when the new Leader had to curb Brown, not Blair, for wanting to go too far, too fast, in modernising the party.

On May 12 1994, the thunderclap fell when John Smith died of a massive heart attack and what happened afterwards was a combination of history, folklore and (as TV plays have shown) political drama.

Brown was the heir-apparent but, while he pondered, wrote obituary tributes and observed the decencies of the mourning period, Blair – and, more crucially, Mandelson – acted. Mandelson had previously regarded Brown as the future leader but now said Blair ‘would play better at the box-office’ and began canvassing. Thus was another long-running feud born out of the betrayal.

Brown believed he could win the leadership election, but saw enough of the party and the Mandelson-inspired media moving against him to confirm his horror of a damaging Labour split.

He would do ‘what is necessary for Labour to win the next election’ and the crunch came at the famous meeting at Granita restaurant in Islington. What was the deal? Only a fly on the wall would really know – but I believe the two men left the restaurant believing different things about what they had agreed.

There was no question that Brown secured a firm assurance that, through the Treasury, he would have control over the whole range of domestic policy, giving him unprecedented power across Whitehall. He also believed Blair had agreed that he would win two elections and step down after eight or ten years; Blair obviously thought otherwise.

The next morning, Gordon Brown phoned my home to break the news he would not be standing for the leadership. My reply was in the Fife vernacular: “You’re aff your heid!” His reply was that it was a fait accompli and had been ‘stitched up’ – by Mandelson.

My feeling was that he would be seen as having ‘bottled it’, that Labour’s record did not create confidence in a second, never mind a third, election win and new challengers would come to the fore in the years to come and his chance would have gone. None of which, of course, happened – so much for pundits.

Blight

The Blair-Brown rivalry could be said to have blighted the years of Labour government, but it also have had its plus points. Blair was the star-actor-manager and Brown supplied the intellectual power. The campaign team for the 1997 general election was formidable - Blair, Brown, Mandelson, Campbell and Excalibur, the rapid response computer – and in the subsequent victories, Brown was the strategist and sharpened the arguments.

At their best, they worked closely and their contrasting characters created what was actually a constructive creative tension. It is unlikely that there will ever again be a Prime Minister and Cabinet Minister working as equals; certainly Gordon Brown, for one, will not allow it!

One interesting contrast has been that, one by one, Blair has either lost or discarded his closest colleagues whereas Brown has remained doggedly loyal to his inner circle of supporters, even when some of them have not deserved it.

Over the years, the inbuilt tension in the TB-GB relationship has been exacerbated by their two coteries sniping at each other to bolster their master’s position (and their own). Blairites in the Cabinet fiercely resented having to take instructions from Brown on the running of their ministries and policy and implementation were frequently paralysed.

There was nothing new in last week’s TV documentary interviews describing the increasingly-strained partnership as ‘like children in a dysfunctional relationship’, so bad that Cherie Blair repeatedly urged her husband to sack his Chancellor.

At first, Blair was tolerant and shrugged “You can’t blame Gordon for wanting to be prime minister, perhaps an indication that there may have been a deal. But bitterness took over and the low point was reached after the 2001 election and it became clear that Blair was not ready to give up within the next term of office. A major factor was Brown’s refusal to take Britain into the euro, despite the carrot held out by Blair that he might then hand over the Premiership.

A frustrated Brown told Cabinet colleagues and finally told Blair himself: “I would not believe a word you say.” There were shouting matches, long silences and make-up meetings brokered by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott but eventually what calmed the ruffled waters was time and the acceptance by both men that the handover was inevitable.

Brown, with his new sense of priorities in his life, realised he could afford to wait. He became more supportive and was in Cabinet when the fatal decisions were made on Iraq, he is the Chancellor who has financed the costly invasion and aftermath, during which he supported Blair and advised him on how to make his case to Parliament, party and people.

Marriage and family life have noticeably changed Gordon Brown’s impatient, sometimes imperious, personality.

As a succession of women friends found out, politics had been his obsession and romance was incidental – resulting in Sue Lawley’s sly "Is he or isn't he?" on Desert Island Discs when she questioned his being a bachelor at 45.

He was also wary of marriage and told me after the Lawley interview: "The kind of life we lead, you don't hear much about MPs getting married - but you do hear a lot about them getting divorced. Or worse. Much, much worse!"

In modern politics, image is all - but Brown's trouble was that he didn’t care that he was caricatured as the Dark Destroyer and a menacing Heathcliff figure: "OK, so I'm dark and look worried - there's a lot to worry about. I'm running for Chancellor of the Exchequer, not a TV talent show.”

It was obvious he needed a woman in his life but he said ‘ It just hasn’t happened yet’ and his chief of staff Sue Nye continued to buy his suits. Neil Kinnock told Scots MPs ‘Get Gordon a girlfriend and a hobby’ but when they took him out on the golf course, one said the round was a political debate punctuated by shots.

He and Sarah Macaulay had met several times through her PR company’s work with the New Statesman and the Labour Party but only found how much they have in common when by chance they sat together on a plane to Scotland in 1994. She had spent childhood holidays and the ethical priority in her PR work dove-tailed with his concerns.

When they married she brought order into his disorganised lifestyle, became the  serene and thoughtful hostess of Number 11 and a discreet networker who restored broken relations with a number of his Cabinet colleagues. At a Downing Street  dinner Sarah passed a note to her husband who was sitting silent between two female guests"Speak to the women on either side of you." The reply came back: "I have."

The death of newborn daughter Jennifer in 2002 welded them even closer together and it showed them to be a couple who will always strive to turn even the most shattering tragedy into something positive. Out of it has grown the PiggybankKids charity and Jennifer Brown Research Fund which support ground-breaking research to save newborn lives and solve pregnancy problems as well as a wide range of children’s charities.

Their son John is now a robust four-year-old who has been seen at Raith Rovers matches with his Dad and although Fraser, born last July, has been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis they talk proudly of potential treatments and his prospects as a normal, active child.

The family take their places in the pew at their local kirk every Sunday they are in Fife. In contrast to Tony Blair who has seemed to be on a public pilgrimage towards Rome, it is only recently that Brown has been forthcoming about his religious hinterland.

When he made his ‘moral compass’ speech, which was virtually his job application for the Leadership, at the Labour conference in Manchester last September, the sentiments and some of the phrases had a familiar ring.

He declared: "When you put yourself forward for the leadership, the country has a right to know where you come from, what you believe in and what you want to achieve.

“My father was a minister of the church. For me, my parents were - and their inspiration still is - my moral compass; the compass which has guided me through each stage of my life. They taught me the importance of integrity and decency, treating people fairly - and duty to others. And now the sheer joy of being a father myself - seeing young children develop, grow and flourish - like for all parents, has changed my life.

"I came into politics out of faith. Faith in people and their potential. And a belief that Britain can lead the world, the compassion of each of us contributing to the wellbeing and security of all."

 Later, I took down the book of the Rev. John E. Brown’s sermons collected by his sons under the title A Time to Serve – and there was Gordon Brown’s political creed.

His father likened the cross to a plus sign “suggesting to us that Christianity is the religion of the something more … having received more, we as Christians are prepared to give more, by way of love and service to our fellow men.”

The Brown government will make mistakes, some policies will be unpopular, their execution will be swift and uncompromising and he will create seething discontent among both bitter Blairites, exiled to the fringes of power, and disappointed left-wingers.

He will go out of his way to avoid being portrayed as ‘a lurch to the Left’ and one veteran Labour MP admits: “Under Blair, there were some people in the inner circle who should not be in the Labour party. Gordon does not have people like that around him – but we on the left have to accept that New Labour was as much Gordon’s as Tony’s creature.”

 It remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Brown can be more collegiate and less of a ‘control freak’ than he has been as Chancellor; the feeling is that the sheer weight of domestic and foreign responsibilities will prevent him from being a micro-manager and he will have to delegate more.

He will have to deliver on his dictum: "Labour is a team or it's nothing."

The one thing on which he is determined is that, having waited all this time, he will not be Prime Minister for just a couple of years only to be defeated at his first General Election as Labour’s undisputed leader.

The big contrast will be in style – more solid, down-to-earth and determined ti create a true democracy in. I believe that we will feel more comfortable in Brown’s Britain because there will a sense of the right things being done for the right reasons.