Brown's Britain Robert Peston Short Books, 388pp, £14.99 ISBN 1904095674

Before you invest in this book, it is worth remembering the author's front-page "splash" for the Financial Times four months after new Labour's landslide win in 1997. Robert Peston was taken very seriously back then (he was the FT's political editor), so his claim that "Cabinet shifts towards EMU" was widely believed, despite the strongest possible denial from the Chancellor's press secretary - me. Peston naturally did not reveal the source for that story and, quite frankly, who cares? Yet this "complete parcel of bollocks", as I described it at the time, actually did Gordon Brown a big favour, because it helped rule out the UK joining the euro in that parliament, and gave full control of any future decision to the Treasury.

Peston's new book may not have done the Chancellor any favours, but Tony Blair clearly isn't too happy, either, given that his duplicity has been exposed yet again. On balance, Brown would probably have preferred the book to have been delayed until after the general election, but Peston presumably could not resist taking the earliest opportunity to promote himself and his so-called biography.

Peston has adopted the Andrew Rawnsley approach to political biography, which involves talking to lots and lots of people "off the record" and then constructing a narrative - in which fact and fiction intermingle - around their outpourings. The result is sold to a Labour-hating newspaper: in Rawnsley's case, to the Daily Mail; in Peston's, to the Sunday Telegraph (where he is now City editor). It doesn't take a genius to work out what these papers generally want from the author.

Both Rawnsley and Peston deliver spectacularly. Rawnsley had his farrago about Brown and Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One boss, which I know to be untrue (though I suppose I shouldn't complain, as I refused to speak to Rawnsley just as I did Peston). Peston has produced a "cut-and-paste" job of old press cuttings about how Blair reneged yet again on a deal with Brown. His icing on the cake is a "quote", allegedly from Brown, saying he would never trust Blair again. Brown may think that Blair is a lying bastard, but he is as likely to tell Peston that as he is to wear jeans and a T-shirt to a funeral.

It's a pity Peston has gone down this road, because most of his book is quite a good read, especially the chapter on how Brown so easily outmanoeuvred Blair over joining the euro. Some of those close to Blair won't like the account, and it is easy to see why they have dismissed the whole book as being pro-Brown. Early on, Peston describes how he wrote a story that Alastair Campbell didn't like, about Labour's tax plans. The source for the story was Blair himself, but that didn't stop Campbell shouting at the author: "Peston, you cunt, are you still working for the Tories?"

Many people will find it odd that so many biographies have been written about Brown - more than about the Prime Minister, in fact. Apart from the obvious reason - it's a fairly simple way of making a few bob - it is because no one really knows him. They won't find out here, because Peston makes no attempt to tell us what really makes Brown tick. The last person to try was the Daily Mail investigative journalist Tom Bower, who failed completely, but we all know where he was coming from.

If you want to know more about the Chancellor, you have to read the first and easily the best biography, by my old friend Paul Routledge.

Charlie Whelan was Gordon Brown's press secretary from 1997-99

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