Hating Gordon Brown

I’m always a bit surprised when I hear that people hate David Cameron. Sure, I think he is a vacuous chancer; an empty suit devoid of policies and convictions. And his larking around with huskies shortly after he became Tory leader remains, for me, the defining image of his leadership thus far; more interested in fashionable images that in real politics. I find him frustrating and lightweight – but I’m still surprised with the bile that some people feel towards him. Hate seems a bit strong when a certain level of eye-rolling and weariness is all Cameron needs. And I’m completely taken aback when people say they hate him more that Gordon Brown.

But then that begs the question – why do I despise Brown so much? Is he really that much worse than “Hug a Husky” Cameron?

Part of the reason for my Brown hatred is arrogance, I suppose. Don’t get me wrong, I think you have to be a little bit arrogant to want to become Prime Minister in the first place. If you aren’t convinced that you’re right, then why bother to put yourself in a position of power and claim that you know better than your fellow citizens? Cameron is arrogant, to be sure – as is Clegg and all the others who seek the highest of high office. Yet almost every politician I can think of wears their arrogance better than Gordon Brown. Not only is Brown certain that he’s right, but if you dare not to agree with him he’ll do everything in his power to bully and/or break you. He doesn’t just patronise those who don’t agree; he hates them and can’t help but let that hate ooze from every pore in his corpulent body.

But there is a far simpler reason why I hate Brown; he was (as predicted by so many, including his own colleagues) an absolute fucking disaster as PM. He screwed this country; he brought us to our knees economically and turned the drama of the recession into a financial apocalypse of a crisis. And he left us with nothing of any value from his years in Number 10; there is nothing to balance his financial failures against. Even a book like Brown At 10 - a tome desperate to appear balanced – cannot hide the fact that Brown basically had no successes as PM to his name, other than not being deposed by his cowardly, inept colleagues.

Of course, Cameron may yet prove to be just as disastrous, and I may grow to properly hate him too. But I suspect that he will struggle to match the arrogant incompetence that so defines Brown – and explains why I find him so utterly odious.