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Benedict Brogan

Benedict Brogan is the Daily Telegraph's Deputy Editor. His blog brings you news, gossip, analysis and occasional insight into politics, and more. You can find his weekly columns here and you can email him at benedict.brogan@telegraph.co.uk.

Peter Watt's portrait of life under Gordon Brown is just the first

 

He may be the captain of his soul, but he has never been in command of the ship. The Mail on Sunday’s extracts of Peter Watt’s account of life as Labour’s general secretary (a coup for Iain Dale’s Biteback publishing) tell a far worse story about Gordon Brown’s premiership than the news summaries suggest. If this is what it was like at the top of Government in 2007, the failure of the Cabinet to act last week let alone last summer becomes all the more baffling. In Nov 2007, Mr Watt recounts, “Downing Street was a shambles. There was no vision, no strategy, no co-ordination. It was completely dysfunctional. Gordon was simply making it up as he went along.”

His telling of the election that never was exposes Mr Brown’s assurance that he had only briefly considered an idea put to him by aides as the untruth it was. The party spent £1.2m getting ready, including the hire of a fleet of cars to drive ministers on the campaign, only for Mr Brown to call it off. Two particularly damaging revelations here. First, Douglas Alexander’s biting conclusion about Mr Brown: “Peter, we have spent 10 years working with this guy, and we don’t actually like him. We have always thought that the longer the British public had to get to know him, the less they would like him as well.” Second, the claim that Ed Miliband, now talked about as a leadership favourite, had to be rescued by Harriet Harman when he failed to produce a manifesto in time.

Mr Watt has an axe to grind. He was made the fall-guy for the Labour donors fiasco and unceremoniously bundled out the door. One excruciating detail in the account of his sacking tells how he was summoned to No10 to meet the Prime Minister, only to be told en route that Mr Brown no longer wanted to see him. His book is therefore an act of retribution, and should be read as such. The picture is no doubt incomplete, even if it rings true. It underscores the point I have made before, that Labour has had all the evidence it needed about Mr Brown’s character flaws that make him unsuitable for the job. But the publication of Inside Out has a wider implication. Mr Watt can’t be the only person who has worked alongside Mr Brown who has a story to tell. Alastair Campbell stripped out the bits about Mr Brown from his diaries, but others may not be so loyal. I fear we have only begun to hear the truth about what life under this Prime Minister has been like.

 

RSS COMMENTS

  • “I fear we have only begun to hear the truth about what life under this Prime Mincer has been like.”

    Benedict, you may fear it, but I look forward to the nasal excavator’s nastiest traits being exposed as were his vile personal habits. Every word out of that midden of a mouth, however flashy the new dental apparatus, is a stinking lie, like it’s deliverer, and the more the Great British Public have their heads dragged up out of the sand, and shown his duplicity the better.

    I do hope that Hoon’s revelations about the lying tosser’s effective murder of our service personnel by vetoing the purchase of helicopters gets the media coverage it deserves (and the Tel, while printing it, haven’t got it as a headline as they should), because this ghastly, mendacious piece of ordure has been peddling them a flat black lie about the issue all along.

    fatuousemissions – are you ready for the mods?

    45govt on Jan 10th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
  • See, that Dead Man Mincing thing is gonna stick!

    Hark, what’s that I hear?

    Drip, drip, drop little April Showers? – Just to keep the Mann Made GW flowing of course…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJZnIHwzvzM&feature=related

    ‘Douglas Alexander’s biting conclusion about Mr Brown: “Peter, we have spent 10 years working with this guy, and we don’t actually like him.’

    One doesn’t HAVE to LIKE the fooka it’s a JOB!

    Plus Lugless Douglas is pretty crap with his ‘responsibilities’ Just HOW MANY VOTES were lost when he was in charge of Scottish Elections? Well over 100,000!

    Another T.w.a.t (as Delectable ‘Dave’ c would say) that needs a P45!

    Ed (the Horse) Moribund is another that can’t even string a sentence together, did you see his dreadful speech a while back telling the Chinese what to do about AGC/W/CC/OA/EPA CO2 DEATH Or whatever they are calling their ‘CDproject’ today?, Oh the Iron Knee being saved by the Hairiest Harmpit!

    theunbrainwashed on Jan 10th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
  • There were lies before him which he is still covering up, there will be lies after him.
    Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth?

    By Paul Craig Roberts

    January 08, 2010 “Information Clearing House” — What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe Bomber plot? These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida’s expertise in pulling off 9/11.

    If we are to believe the U.S. government, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida “mastermind” behind 9/11, outwitted the CIA, the NSA, indeed all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies as well as those of all U.S. allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, Airport Security four times on one morning, and Dick Cheney, and with untrained and inexperienced pilots pulled off skilled piloting feats of crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers, and the Pentagon, where a battery of state of the art air defenses somehow failed to function.

    After such amazing success, al-Qaida would have attracted the best minds in the business, but, instead, it has been reduced to amateur stunts.

    The Underwear Bomb plot is being played to the hilt on the TV media and especially on Fox “news.” After reading recently that The Washington Post allowed a lobbyist to write a news story that preached the lobbyist’s interest, I wondered if the manufacturers of full body scanners were behind the heavy coverage of the Underwear Bomber, if not behind the plot itself. In America, everything is for sale. Integrity is gone with the wind.

    Recently I read a column by an author who has a “convenience theory” about the Underwear Bomber being a Nigerian allegedly trained by al-Qaida in Yemen. As the U.S. is involved in an undeclared war in Yemen, about which neither the American public nor Congress were informed or consulted, the Underwear Bomb plot provided a convenient excuse for Washington’s new war, regardless of whether it was a real attack or a put-up job.

    Once you start to ask yourself about whose agenda is served by events and their news spin, other things come to mind. For example, last July there was a news report that the government in Yemen had disbanded a terrorist cell, which was operating under the supervision of Israeli intelligence services. According to the news report, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told Saba news agency that a terrorist cell was arrested and that the case was referred to judicial authorities “for its links with the Israeli intelligence services.”

    Could the Underwear Bomber have been one of the Israeli terrorist recruits? Certainly Israel has an interest in keeping the US fully engaged militarily against all potential foes of Israel’s territorial expansion.

    The thought brought back memory of my Russian studies at Oxford University where I learned that the Tsar’s secret police set off bombs so that they could blame those whom they wanted to arrest.

    I next remembered that Francesco Cossiga, the president of Italy from 1985-1992, revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, a false flag operation under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The bombings were blamed on communists and were used to discredit communist parties in elections.

    An Italian parliamentary investigation unearthed the fact that the attacks were overseen by the CIA. Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated in sworn testimony that the attacks targeted innocent civilians, including women and children, in order “to force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.”

    What a coincidence. That is exactly what 9/11 succeeded in accomplishing in the U.S.

    Among the well-meaning and the gullible in the West, the supposition still exists that government represents the public interest. Political parties keep this myth alive by fighting over which party best represents the public’s interest. In truth, government represents private interests, those of the office holders themselves and those of the lobby groups that finance their political campaigns. The public is in the dark as to the real agendas.

    The U.S. and its puppet state allies were led to war in the Middle East and Afghanistan entirely on the basis of lies and deception. Iraqi weapons of mass destruction did not exist and were known by the U.S. and British governments not to exist. Forged documents, such as the “yellowcake documents,” were leaked to newspapers in order to create news reporting that would bring the public along with the government’s war agenda.

    Now the same thing is happening in regard to the nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program. Forged documents leaked to The Times (London) that indicated Iran was developing a “nuclear trigger” mechanism have been revealed as forgeries.

    Who benefits? Clearly, attacking Iran is on the Israeli-U.S. agenda, and someone is creating the “evidence” to support the case, just as the leaked secret “Downing Street Memo” to the British cabinet informed Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government that President Bush had already made the decision to invade Iraq and “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

    The willingness of people to believe their rulers and the propaganda ministries that serve the rulers is astonishing. Many Americans believe Iran has a nuclear weapons program despite the unanimous conclusion of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies to the contrary.

    Vice President Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives fought hard with limited success to change the CIA’s role from intelligence agency to a political agency that manufactures facts in support of the neoconservative agenda. For the Bush Regime creating “new realities” was more important than knowing the facts.

    Recently I read a proposal from a person purporting to favor an independent media that stated that we must save the print media from financial failure with government subsidies. Such a subsidy would complete the subservience of the media to government.

    Even in Stalinist Russia, a totalitarian political system where everyone knew that there was no free press, a gullible or intimidated public and Communist Party enabled Joseph Stalin to put the heroes of the Bolshevik Revolution on show trial and execute them as capitalist spies.

    In the U.S. we are developing our own show trials. Sheikh Mohammed’s will be a big one. As Chris Hedges recently pointed out, once government uses demonized Muslims to get the new justice (sic) system going, the rest of us will be next.

    Jonathan on Jan 10th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
  • More than that is the plain picture emerging that the higher up in the Labour effluent disposal arrangements you get, the more there appears to be a sense of entitlement to spend taxpayers money on petulant battles with estranged colleagues, retributive backstabbing of ex-Ministers, points-scoring and settling of old scores. Funny how the electorate never actually seem to appear on the horizons of these people.

    45 – Sorry old boy but I’ve reported you to the moderators for your excessive Diplomacy towards and blatant soft-pedalling of Gordon Brown. No disrespect, either say it straight and proper or don’t try. Gordon Brown is a

    (this part left intentionally blank until originator is properly possessed of the correct advanced vocabulary).

    Pogles Woodsman on Jan 10th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
  • At least some got to be paid to live under him.

    The rest of us have just had to endure the consequences of that dubious location… whilst funding the whole sorry process.

    Were it just about likeability.

    I don’t need to feel a warm glow about my leaders; but I need to respect them and feel they are competent and fighting my corner.

    0 for 3 was never going to cut it. Self-evidently.

    That this person could rise to the position of PM, and stay there so long after so much, says more than most else about the parlous state of our political system.

    JunkkMale on Jan 10th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
  • More lies coming up from the Commonwealth? This spiders web of terror that is our Government(s) is becoming very bold.
    False Flag Attack at Canadian Olympics?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sa6_wBgxtw&feature=player_embedded

    Jonathan on Jan 10th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
  • Jonathan on Jan 10th, 2010 at 4:20 pm

    Watched vid, will now be all Eyes on Canada!

    theunbrainwashed on Jan 10th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
  • Gordon Brown was clearly unsuitable for the job from the time he deferred to Tony Blair in 1994, preferring to give Mr Blair a serious-free-challenger run at the Labour leadership, rather than put his trust in the membership in a democratic ballot. What genuine conviction politician, burning to make Britain a better place in which to live, would opt to sulk in a rival’s shadow for a decade or more and then take Buggins Turn?

    Mr Brown underlined his unsuitability when in 2007 he talked up a general election, spent more than a million pounds of Labour party funds on the start of a campaign, and then chickened out rather than put his trust in the electorate. Would Churchill or Thatcher, with whom Brown likes to compare himself, have been as pusillanimous?

    So we knew he was a coward. We also knew he was a bully, throwing mobile phones around and sweeping laser printers off desks in a rage. We knew he was a hypocrite, approving the Crewe and Nantwich by-election campaign smearing the Tory candidate as a toff while the Labour candidate was listed in Burke’s Landed Gentry; allowing political adviser Damian McPoison to plan a smear campaign against Tory politicians and their wives and trying to laugh it off as a joke when it came to light. We now know he was a tightwad chancellor, putting the lives of British servicemen and women at risk by vetoing the ordering of life-saving battlefield equipment for Afghanistan and Iraq.

    So Gordon Brown, proven coward, bully, hypocrite and gambler with the lives of British service personnel, as you near your 59th birthday, this was your political life. Retire in May or June in richly-deserved ignominy.

    Junius on Jan 10th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
  • Unbrainwashed, yep, they either call it off or we have them exposed again.
    Interestingly connected to the the “security” firm at ALL airports whenever a false flag goes off.
    http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/underwear_bomber__206.html
    And Brown continues to beat the drum in full knowledge of criminal acts.

    Jonathan on Jan 10th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
  • PW – you are right! Did I mention that I have a very low regard for McNutter?

    Note to self – must do better.

    45govt on Jan 10th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
  • And yet, in the No.10 Bunker, he’ll be there ranting that fresh waves of Clown Youth will secure a historic victory.

    In the real world, the bemused citizens are stunned by the political, social and economic wreckage created by Clown’s tax’n'bungle years as Chancellor and utterly disastrous tenure as PM.

    Unless your a dole scrounger of course, in which case you’ve never had it so good!

    Reece on Jan 10th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
  • This is just confirmation from inside Labour of what we know life has been like under this dreadful man. Most of us have suffered and will continue to suffer for years to come as a result of his colossal failings as both Chancellor and Prime Minister. Loss of office is insufficient punishment for the harm he has done and if there were any justice he would be jailed.

    Brian Tomkinson on Jan 10th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
  • Anyone who sulks through dinner because his guests sat down without his sayso must have more than one screw loose. The word is he is a manic depressive with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I’d just say he’s completely off his rocker. It would be interesting to see a psychological profile of the moron.

    RuleBritannia on Jan 10th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
  • And let us not overlook him being egged on and stroking his over bloated ego by Mr & Mrs Balls, who really supped deeply from the expenses trough by having different elections as to primary and secondary residences, on the elections made, they were clearly shaping up for a divorce, but the facts speak otherwise.

    When is a fact not a fact? Yep, top marks when uttered by the Brownstain, his mate Balls and/or Lady Rio and/or hairy armpit (and if rumour is true will be well oiled after the elections with a cushy number at BP).

    snoekie on Jan 10th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
  • Only to be expected, at the wishes of the Brown media hacks at #10, Watts is labelled an ‘axe to grind’ author.

    Now recruit hima sa Consultant to the Tory Party and get some real dirt to paint Browns face.

    geoffthereff on Jan 10th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
  • All political biographies are to some extent self justification,point scoring and revenge. The Crossman Diaries, Barbara Castle as examples ?

    Peter Watt is entitled to revenge given the way he was treated. But they all do it at the top of politics. And why not ? Blair and Brown deserve any criticism coming/ already arrived.

    Much as we all knew years before that the Wales’ marriage was on the rocks we know how Brown loathed Blair and vice versa. We know Brown is socially awkward, has tantrums, bullies and screams and is on medication. So …? Bullying is in the Labour DNA.

    Mikea on Jan 10th, 2010 at 9:01 pm

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