Brown the Bully

Apparently the Cabinet Secretary didn't give Gordon Brown a verbal warning:

But a Downing Street spokesman said: "The cabinet secretary would like to make clear that he has never raised concerns with the prime minister about him acting in a bullying or intimidatory manner in relation to Number 10 staff, let alone giving him any sort of verbal warning."

But of course he didn't! After all, he was probably too scared of Brown bullying him...

Joking (?) aside, this story will probably run its course over the next couple of days without ever being resolved. Every lurid accusation that Brown is the boss from hell as well as the Prime Minister from hell will be met with a cagey denial. Unless any proof comes forward, then this story will just fade away, without any real conclusion about Brown's behaviour. But even though I doubt that the accounts of bullying will ever be properly verified, doesn't it speak volumes about our PM that these largely unsubstantiated claims could gain such traction? It really says something about (the public perception of) his character that so many could so rapidly buy into the idea of the PM as a bully. It is hard to imagine anything similar happening to any of Brown's immediate predecessors in Number 10 - I mean, can anyone really imagine the grinning homunculus Blair chucking a mobile, or Major grabbing an official by his lapels and screaming the "C" word at him, or Thatcher manhandling a secretary from her chair because she wasn't typing fast enough? No, no, of course not. It is just Brown. There is something special about Brown that makes these allegations believable when they probably wouldn't gain any traction with better other people.

After all, how many times have we all been told that bullies are, at heart, cowards? And history has no shortage of the examples of the cowardice of one Gordon Brown...