When my colleague Mehdi and I interviewed Gordon Brown this week, we took the opportunity to ask why he was so reliant on the right-wing media — especially that of Rupert Murdoch and his close friend the Mail editor Paul Dacre — when, ultimately, they do not support the Labour party’s aims. To my surprise, far from making an appeal to his centre-left audience, he harked back romantically to those heady days, in the summer of 2007, when he enjoyed broad support in the country and media:
“I’m pretty honest about what I believe in, I come from a background where what matters to me is integrity and decency and being fair to people, and taking responsibility for your actions. I don’t think anything that’s happened to me has changed my view that that is where you should stand; and if on some issues newspapers are prepared to support what you do, that’s fine. One of the first things I did when I came in was say we’re not going to have a super-casino. We changed the drug laws on cannabis and that’s the way I see society. If people support me because I do that, that’s fine; if people don’t support me, I’m prepared to take the consequences.”
Maybe, then, this is the real Gordon Brown, and of course he was right on super-casinos and — in my opinion — cannabis. But it feels a long time since his identity has been stamped on this Government. With days until his last conference speech before next year’s general election, he should be doing some soul-searching to find out what it is he is in politics for, before expressing it clearly and without compromise. Otherwise, within six months, he won’t be in front line politics at all.
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