Brown and the halo effect

There are two other things I don't like about Moving Britain Forward. One is that each chapter is introduced by some pompous bigwig: Trever Phillips, Al Gore, Alan Greenspan, Kofi Annan and the like. It seems Brown needs the endorsement of the supposedly "great and good" to create a halo effect.
Also, there is nothing in the 274 pages of the tome that even looks like a joke or witticism. Brown is hoping that by being boring, people will think he's serious.
These two failings are related. Brown is terrified of letting his thoughts speak for themselves, or his arguments stand on their own merits. So he needs other tricks to persuade the reader, sub-rationally, that he is a credible figure.
He is, of course, right to be terrified. He's an insecure man, with much to be insecure about.
Another thing: one of Brown's endorsees is someone called Lord Ralf Dahrendorf. This is, of course, a solecism. Only younger sons of Dukes or Marquesses prefix their first name with "Lord". Dahrendorf is not one of these. In a book praising the "golden thread" of British history, the error jars.

Comments

[james higham]

These two failings are related. Brown is terrified of letting his thoughts speak for themselves, or his arguments stand on their own merits.

Chris, don't you think [and far be it for me to defend him now] that Gordon might possibly be attributing in the manner one does with a dissertation?

[Noosa Lee]

Spot on. Maybe he is sincere (and I really doubt it), but what's the point of wanting to be prime minister if you know you can't really cut it? Is that not a triumph of personal vanity over national interest? I fear someone might have left his moral compass in his other trousers.

[Gracchi]

The other issue I think is that someone so insecure can't learn from people, his problem I've always thought was that he preferred to control things and people than to have people out of his control that can criticise him and that's the issue with Brown that might make him a bad governor- because ultimately government is about taking lessons from people and its about making mistakes and reversing from your mistakes.

[AntiCitizenOne]

Some people have alledged that Brown has had treatment for mental illess (ECT etc.)

But then others have hinted about pictures of Brown wearing a nappy in the States.

Neither is probably true, but worth watching for.