Gordon Brown's dirty dozen (as confessed to Piers Morgan)

Having commented in previous posts on Gordon Brown's inability to answer questions in interviews (HERE & HERE) and his tendency to pack far too much information into his speeches (e.g. HERE), I suppose I should give him points for slight improvement on both counts in his encounter with Piers Morgan.

But, about half-way through the interview, he reverted to type when asked about the delicate matter of his relationship with Tony Blair after the Labour party leadership became vacant on the death of John Smith in 1994 (and after Blair had become leader and won three general elections).

A thin slice of meat

Although it was arguably the most revealing part of the whole show, this short sequence of less than four minutes (see below) doesn't seem to have attracted much attention - perhaps because it was such a thin slice of meat that some deft editing had sandwiched between the early banter about student days, wine women and song, etc. and the later harrowing sequence about the death of Brown's infant daughter.

Or maybe it wasn't picked up on because it merely repeated what everyone had already known (or at least suspected) for well over a decade.

After much laughing and giggling in the first half hour, Gordon's smiles suddenly disappear for a good three minutes before he managed another one - which only comes when Morgan turns to the "big rows" alleged to have taken place between him and Tony Blair - that had the effect of restoring the jocularity in time for the last 40 seconds before the commercial break to be conveniently rounded off in an amiable mood of good humour.

The Dirty Dozen

But, in a mere 3 minutes and 40 seconds, Brown had managed to make 12 points that confirm the worst fears of anyone who might worry about the character of a man who so resented the success of his charismatic colleague that he spent the best part of 16 years sulking about it:

1. Brown did believe that he, rather than Blair, would be and should have been the next Labour leader after John Smith.

2. He was angry that Blair won, but "got over it pretty quickly" (er- 14 years later?)

3. He found it painful.

4. There was no deal between him and Blair at the Islington restaurant (but actually there was a deal that had been agreed elsewhere).

5. Blair had agreed to stand down and support Brown "w- when that was the case".

6. It was up to Blair to decide when to deliver on the deal.

7. He "has to remember" that Blair had won a general election (er- 3 actually) whereas he hadn't.

8. They did have fights that caused tension.

9. It's good to be open and honest that there were disagreements about certain things (!?).

10. In spite of all that, they "managed" to "get things sorted out".

After 3 minutes, we get Brown's first smile, which prompts Morgan to switch to a lighter mood, during which we learn:

11. Brown never actually threw anything at Blair.

12. He had been been tempted to do so.

(Historical/comparative footnote: you can watch some action replays of Mrs Thatcher in a chat show in 1983 here).

Why does 'The Times' think Brown's interview has 'eroded the dignity of his office'?

A fleeting review of media and blog reactions to the Piers Morgan interview last night points to a consensus that Gordon Brown more or less got away with it.

This doesn't really surprise me, as I can't see that he had anything to lose from doing a 'soft' chat-show interview - any more than Mrs Thatcher had when she appeared on Aspel & Company during the miners' strike in 1983 (see previous post)

The most baffling exception to the consensus I've seen so far is in a leading article in The Times under the headline:

Private Grief, Public Persona

Gordon Brown’s interview with Piers Morgan eroded the dignity of his office

But, unless I'm unusually dense this morning, I can't see anything in what follows that makes any further mention of the interview having 'eroded the dignity of his office' let alone any explanation of how, why or in what sense it's supposed to have done so.

Nor did it make much of a case for another of its definitive-sounding conclusions, namely that 'for Mr Brown, it was a mistake.'

I don't think it was (and don't seem to be alone on that).

What's more, I don't remember The Times accusing Mrs Thatcher of having 'eroded the dignity of her office' by agreeing to be interviewed by Michael Aspel (or as a regular on BBC Radio 2's Jimmy Young Show).

Piers Morgan interviews Gordon Brown: shades of Michael Aspel & Margaret Thatcher?

I've been intrigued by the way the media has been getting so wound up during the build up to Gordon Brown's appearance in a TV interview with Piers Morgan on Sunday night (and wondering what, if anything, I'll have to say in an interview about it on BBC Radio Bristol on Monday morning).

There is, after all, nothing new about embattled prime ministers taking the opportunity to appear in 'soft' talk shows.

Did the the idea come from Margaret Thatcher?

Maybe Mrs Thatcher gave him the idea when she went to number 10 for tea not long after Mr Brown had arrived there - as she was the one who had pioneered the strategy in an bid to 'soften' her image during the miner's strike in 1983. As Ian Hargreaves put it on the BBC website a while back:

'Meanwhile, the politicians hade their own ideas for diversifying the interview market. Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher's crusty press secretary, says he wass opposed to the decision to put the prime minister on Michael Aspel's ITV chat show in 1983, but was over-ruled by her image consultants.

'But she did so well - softening the Iron Lady image assembled in the miners' strike - that even Ingham became a convert to chat show politics. Soon Mrs T was in and out of Jimmy Young's Radio Two studio as often as the Today Programme.'

For me, her appearance in Aspel & Company had at least three memorable moments:

1. Where to sit?
The first came right at the start, when Mrs Thatcher pretends that she's not sure where to sit. Yet here was someone who never went into a television studio without the advice of former TV producer Gordon Reece, who had decided that, wherever possible, her left profile should be exposed to the camera.

Also note how 'dolled up' she is - which is thoroughly consistent with a point about her 'unambiguously recognisable femininity' that I made in an earlier post on the evolution of charismatic woman.

2. Thatcher & Aspel were quite open about the rules of the game:

Early on in the interview, Aspel notes how unusual it is for a prime minister to appear on a show like this. Mrs Thatcher concludes her reply by saying how 'very grateful' she was to have been invited - whereupon he reassures her by confirming that he's after "different kinds of answers" to those she has to come up with at prime minister's question time:

3. The audience's reaction to "I'm always on the job."

Whether or not Mrs Thatcher realised why the audience laughed and applauded when she announced that he was always "on the job"* is not altogether clear - though Aspel's sideways glance leaves little doubt that he knew perfectly well how they'd taken it.

I also suspect that her choice of those particular words may have been triggered by the fact that Aspel had just mentioned that she lives "over the job" at number 10 - in a similar way to that in which I suggested Gordon Browns gaffe about 'saving the world' might have been triggered by sounds in the words had had just used (for more on which, see HERE).

(* Native speakers of American English may not be aware that, in British English slang, 'on the job' is commonly used - depending on context - to mean 'having sex').