Short brands Brown ‘a tragedy’
By politics.co.uk staff
Former Cabinet secretary Clare Short has branded Gordon Brown’s time as prime minister “a tragedy”.
Comparing the current prime minister to his predecessor, Ms Short said: “In a sense Gordon is the bigger tragedy. He always wanted to be prime minister and thought it should have been him, rather than Tony [Blair]. Certainly, when they were both together in opposition, Gordon was the senior one.
“I think he got so het-up in taking over that he lost his way, he lost his sense of who he was,” she told the Birmingham Post.
“He hinted that there would be a bit of a fresh beginning when he took over from Tony and we needed that – people have forgotten how unpopular Tony became – and he just blew it.
“I think he spent so long calculating how to take over that he lost remembering why he did it.
He’s not a bad person, he’s a control freak and he hasn’t got Tony’s charm, as everybody sees. I think he’s lost his way.”
Ms Short resigned from the government just after the start of the Iraq war.
