Brown's hatred of workers

With this story, everything falls into place:

Disturbing reports have emerged that Gordon Brown is rude to his secretaries — or garden girls, as they are known inside Downing Street. He is said to shout at them abusively. On one occasion he is reported to have impatiently turfed one of the girls out of her chair and sat down to use the keyboard himself.
All recent prime ministers — Thatcher, Major, Blair — were loved by the garden girls. All recent prime ministers from time to time endured problems. Only Gordon Brown has vented his frustration on secretaries, who can never answer back or speak for themselves.

Yes, Gordon Brown hates the working class. This explains so much: his kneejerk illiberalism; his appointment, within hours of becoming PM, of the class warrior Digby Jones as a minister; his preference to fund the Labour party by bribes from rich men rather than from mass small donations; his desire to exclude Labour members from decision-making and his reliance instead upon a small cabal of advisors; and his refusal to even consider any collective empowerment of working people in the workplace.
There's also his endless talk of increasing the skills of the workforce, as if workers should be moulded to meet the requirements of capital rather than vice versa.
And we can read his belief in the importance of aspirations as a desire that people leave the working class, and by extension a contempt for those workers who are content to stay in their place. Could it be that Brown's rudeness to secretaries - which, I suspect, is not matched by a rudeness to his millionaire friends - is founded on the belief that their failure to "advance" in a meritocratic society indicates their inferior moral worth?

Comments

[Phil]

[a desire that people leave the working class, and by extension a contempt for those workers who are content to stay in their place]

See also http://yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com/2007/03/gordon-brown-no-better.html
("Nobody aspires to be a single person on £12,000.")

[Justin]

To be fair, most recent prime ministers hated the working class. It's just some of them were (relatively) better at hiding it than others.

Brown's 'endless talk of increasing the skills of the workforce' has been an ever-present theme of New Labour. Remember Charles Clarke and his view that learning for learning's sake was 'a bit dodgy'? It's the economically-optimal drones, stupid.

[Justin]

And to follow Brown's prejudice to its logical conclusion: who would he give the hair dryer treatment to if the garden girls realise their aspirations and become millionaire donors to the Labour Party? Who will wipe the arses in care homes or guard the Prime Ministerial limo?

[ChrisP]

New Labour has no direct knowledge of the working class & are therefore taking up 'sound' theoretical positions. After all if you are a millionaire and Oxbridge educated (fill in a name: The Milliband brothers perhaps?) the working class is your secretary and cleaner. And as there are more PPE's than women in the Cabinet there does appear to be a lot of opportunity for 'Groupthink' to be demonstrated. Add to the mix managerialism & implosion can't be far away.

[Alex]

However, I think a blog like this one which is devoted to opposing bullshit personality politics ought to oppose bullshit personality politics when it comes from the opposition as well as from the powers-that-be.

And frankly, unsourced personality stories *in the Spectator* by *Peter Oborne* about *Gordon Brown* are the last place to look for actual information.

Note that he doesn't even have the balls to take the minimal responsibility implied by invoking source confidentiality; "disturbing reports" have apparently "emerged".

[Alex]

However, I think a blog like this one which is devoted to opposing bullshit personality politics ought to oppose bullshit personality politics when it comes from the opposition as well as from the powers-that-be.

And frankly, unsourced personality stories *in the Spectator* by *Peter Oborne* about *Gordon Brown* are the last place to look for actual information.

Note that he doesn't even have the balls to take the minimal responsibility implied by invoking source confidentiality; "disturbing reports" have apparently "emerged".

[Devil's Kitchen]

I don't know about this, Chris: I think that Brown just hates *people*...

DK

[Matthew]

I agree with Alex. It's one thing extrapolating wildly from a single economics article in a substandard economic journal; it's another to take Peter Oborne gossip as fact.

[Griswold]

In my view he is a mysogonist. His 'bad' treatment of women goes back a long way. In this regard his behaviour is on a par with a typical male Australian circa 1900.

[ortega]

'Hatred of workers'.
It sounds a lot worse than hatred of capitalists, doesn´t it? And deserves an explanation, since the other is usually taken as self-explanatory.

[Andrew Duffin]

I think you're being too subtle.

Brown's rudeness to the secretaries simply indicates a lack of basic manners. No gentleman would take out his (understandable) frustration at his own shortcomings on those who can never answer back.

For shame.

[Matt Munro]

And this surprises you ? Change the words "Gordon Brown" to "New Labour" and your post makes just as much sense. The liberal left long ago turned their backs on the white working class, and New Labour are as close as you will get to a liberal left government.

[John]

Is it possible Brown has not learned the First Rule of Business? That is, "DON'T PISS OFF THE SECRETARIES." I he hasn't leaned that, he's not long for that job. He's finished. The garden girls'll skin him alive.