Gordon Brown: A life
By Jonathan Moore
It can’t be a very happy birthday for Gordon Brown.
As the prime minister celebrates his 58th birthday today he finds himself in charge of a country in economic meltdown, with his party’s and his own approval ratings in what looks like terminal freefall.
He spent ten years keeping a tight rein on the nation’s economy, forging a reputation as the iron chancellor and enjoying a period of unprecedented growth.
But his ascension to Number Ten wasn’t glorious. He inherited a country embroiled in two unpopular wars and there were many who questioned whether his dour demeanour would hinder his ability to lead the nation.
Since then, it must sometimes seem as if he’s living through a nightmare. After waiting in the wings for so long, he came to power just before the most severe economic downturn for a generation, and there’s every chance he will never win an election as prime minister.
Born in Glasgow in 1951, he soon moved to the small town of Kirkcaldy where his father was a minister in the Church of Scotland. He was described by his mother as “the shyest member of the family”.
As a young boy he set up a newspaper, the Gazette, with his elder brother John to raise money for refugees. By 12 he was already walking the streets of Kirkcaldy stuffing Labour party leaflets through letterboxes.
Academically gifted, he attended Kirkcaldy High at the age of 10 and was accepted into Edinburgh University at 16.
He missed his first term, though, following a rugby accident at school which left him blind in one eye with only 30% vision in his other. He was later to use this incident as evidence of his commitment to the NHS.
At university he was quick to involve himself in student politics, becoming the editor of the university’s paper in his second year. He was also popular with the ladies, and for a time was involved with an exiled Romanian princess, Margarita du Romaine.
Following his graduation he managed to get himself elected as the university’s rector in 1972. His successful campaign was boosted by the ‘Brown Sugars’, three mini-skirted fans who followed him to phot-shoots wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Gordon for me” emblazoned across them.
Such was the confidence of the man, he even tried to get authorities to declare an academic holiday when his three-year term ended.
After a few years working as an academic he took his first foray into mainstream politics in 1979 when he stood against future Conservative minister Michael Ancram for the Edinburgh South seat in the general election. He lost on that occasion but four years later he was back on the campaign trail, securing the safe Labour seat of Dunfermaline East in 1983.
Labour was in a bad way when he entered parliament. They had their lowest share of seats for 60 years and were facing up against the formidable Margaret Thatcher. He was determined see change in the party, change he thought was necessary if they were ever to return to office.
At the time, the party was being torn apart by competing interests, but he managed to find a kindred spirit who shared his ideas for the future in another young MP he shared an office with.
The newly-elected MP for Sedgefield was a 30-year-old Tony Blair.
Together the two formed a formidable partnership which saw them rise through the ranks of the party in the late eighties and early nineties.
When Labour leader John Smith died of a heart attack in 1994, the election for the new leader of the party saw Brown and Blair pitted against one another.
A deal was struck in a restaurant in Islington called Granita, or so the legend goes. Brown agreed to allow Blair a clear run at the leadership in exchange for powers which would make him the strongest chancellor in history.
The partnership was a sensation and against a Tory government mired in sleaze the Labour party swept to power in 1997 in a landslide.
In his first week as chancellor he announced the independence of the Bank of England, a move described as the biggest shake-up to the bank in 300 years.
Rifts began growing between Brown and Blair very early on. With Brown extending the power of the Treasury in all areas of government he was ruffling the feathers of other New Labour members.
The first major splitting point was over Britain’s entry into the Euro. Blair was a fan. Brown was not.
He got married in 2000 and many said this changed his mood, with the birth of his first son following soon after in 2001.
In the years that followed the rift between Brown and Blair only grew wider. Over the controversial subject of top-up fees it was not until the very last minute that Brown told his supporters to back the motion, giving Blair a narrow victory of just five votes. He had emphatically asserted his power.
The election campaign in 2005 saw Brown and Blair together, as though they were old friends, but with widespread media reports of spats and arguments behind the scenes, it was not long after their historic third-term victory that problems began once more.
Blair could see his time as leader was at an end and finally stepped down in 2007, prompted at least in part by Labour party anger over his neutered response to the Israeli-Hizbullah conflict. There was no challenger to Brown, despite embryonic attempts to find one – both among Blairites and old Labour MPs. He entered office on June 27th 2007.
Initially, opinion polls showed considerable support for the new leader. His deft handling of the floods, a foot-and-mouth outbreak and failed terrorist attacks bought him considerable credit. There was a wisely conceived, tabloid-friendly campaign to fly the Union Jack outside government building all year long. Even David Cameron’s wife admitted liking him. Buoyed by the polls, speculation of a snap general election grew.
But when it came to the crunch, Brown bottled it.
Early in 2008 he experienced the first of what would become of many, many major financial crises, with the run on Northern Rock. The bank had been guilty of irresponsible loans and was teetering on the brink of total collapse when the government stepped in to nationalise it. It was the first British bank to be nationalised since the seventies. It would not be the last.
Brown’s polls had been sliding to such an extent he was being talked about in the same sentence as Michael Foot. And then the world went into financial meltdown.
Sub-prime mortgages in the United States had infected the financial industry and in September, as stock markets around the world began to crash, it seemed every day there was new and more threatening news.
Brown’s reaction to the crisis and his rescue package for the banks was hailed as the model to follow. In an infamous slip he even claimed to have “saved the world”.
His poll ratings soared, in no small part because his dull, managerial image suddenly felt reassuring in the face of global chaos and calamity. As the months dragged on and company after company began to go to the wall the ‘Brown bounce’ began to wane, and then nosedive.
Brown enters his 59th year staring into the abyss.
