Brown behaviour to junior staff ‘unforgivable’
By politics.co.uk staff
Gordon Brown’s behaviour towards junior staff can be “unforgivable”, according to former spin doctor Lance Price.
In extracts of his new book published in the Independent, Mr Price corroborates rumours of the prime minister’s angry tirades and micro-management style.
“If Brown saw something he didn’t like he would rush to the press office and demand that it be corrected or that a response be issued immediately,” he writes.
“When he believes a story is running out of control or that – the worst sin of all – the press office has been caught unawares, he can react with extraordinary flashes of anger.
“Stories of mobile phones hurled across the room in fury regularly appear in the press, although it rarely gets to that stage.
“Shouting at staff, jabbing an angry finger, throwing down papers, even kicking the furniture are far more common.”
The book describes a dark, stressful working environment in the Downing Street press office, despite pledges early in his administration to end the culture of spin.
“His behaviour towards relatively junior members of staff can be ‘unforgivable’ according to one person who has witnessed it,” Mr Price writes.
“‘It isn’t a very nice place for people to work. However bad it sometimes looks from the outside, it’s far, far worse from the inside. And the atmosphere is very much set by him’,” Mr Price quotes one witness as saying.
“Those in the press office more used to dealing with the daily onslaught of unpredictable news put it down to Brown’s ten years in the Treasury, where events could be carefully planned and the phone never rang in the middle of the night with another crisis to be handled.”
The new memoirs come hot on the heels of an equally damaging account of the Labour project from former Labour party chairman Peter Watt.
