Allegations of bullying have shifted the focus onto Gordon Brown

This is an opinion piece I wrote for an online news day on 24/02/10.

Gordon Brown has every reason to be lobbing objects around Downing Street right now.

The political agenda is being dominated by questions about his character, and they are not the rather cushy ones put to him by Piers Morgan on ITV a couple of Sundays ago.

He has been accused of, among other things, turfing a secretary out of her seat, grabbing an aide by the lapels and punching a car seat. The story gained extra traction when the National Bullying Helpline revealed it had received calls from staff at Downing Street.

The fact is that before this furore erupted, Labour was experiencing a welcome upturn in fortunes. The Conservatives, for so long presumed to be the government in waiting were, to put it bluntly, slipping.

A poll in the Guardian on Tuesday underlined this.

With less than four months to go until a General Election, the Tory lead is now only seven points (37% compared to Labour’s 30%). If this was repeated at a General Election there would be a hung parliament. Back in October a similar poll showed the party’s share of the vote to be 45%.

Gaffe after gaffe has been made by their normally-slick party machine.

First came Tory confusion over plans tax breaks for married couples, then a slip-up on how fast they would cut the country’s ballooning budget deficit. Now there won’t be swingeing cuts in the first year of a Conservative government according to Cameron, which rather goes against what he has been saying for the past year.

The almighty row over care for the elderly hardly worked in their favour either after a number of care groups and charities came out in favour of the government’s so called ‘death tax’.

The revelation that Brown has a bit of a temper is hardly earth shattering, but the prime minister’s character matters. Journalism’s role is to scrutinise the powerful, and Andrew Rawnsley’s book The End of the Party – the source of the current storm – is a welcome contribution to the pre-election debate.

Writing in the new-look Observer on Sunday, Rawnsley explained the reasons for publishing his book now: “It clearly matters how a leader works – or cannot work – with his colleagues; whether he responds to crises and setbacks calmly or in a hysterical fashion; and how he treats his staff.”

“I anticipate that there will be some who will say that it is somehow inappropriate to publish this book so close to the moment when the country will decide on its next government at a general election.

“On the contrary, there is surely no more appropriate time to assess New Labour’s record in office and portray the men who have wielded that power as they truly are. It’s not in my job description to serve the interests of any political party. I have been fiercely critical of the Tories and will continue to be so when they deserve it.

“It is a journalist’s duty to both himself and to his readers to be unflinchingly truthful about the flaws of the powerful.”

The flaws of Brown are currently in the spotlight, which gives Cameron the chance to get his party’s campaign back on track.

When the dust settles David Cameron should face similar scrutiny as well. He is still widely expected to be the next prime minister of this country, and voters need all the information they can before commit to a Conservative government.

Rawnsley's book has caused quite a stir

That was the rebuttal issued by Peter Mandelson on the Andrew Marr show this morning in response to allegations in the new-look Observer.

The paper is serialising a book by its chief political commentator Andrew Rawnsley – The End of the Party – which charts the fortunes of the Labour party under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Chief among the allegations is that Sir Gus O’Donnell, the cabinet secretary, became so concerned by reports of Brown’s explosive temper that he looked into the matter and told the PM: ‘This is no way to get things done’.

To no great surprise Downing Street is adamant Rawnsley’s claims are untrue. As well as the aforementioned Mandelson interview, the Cabinet Office has denied any such warning was made. In addition, Brown himself moved to pre-empt the Observer’s allegations. ‘Let me just say, absolutely clearly, so that there is no misunderstanding about that: I have never, never hit anybody in my life,’ he said in an interview with Channel 4 News.

Rawnsley is sticking with his story.

‘I approached this subject acutely aware that a rumour is not the same as a fact,” he says in a piece published in the paper today.

‘I set a rule that I would not publish anything about an episode involving abusive behaviour unless I had secured utterly reliable accounts. Some incidents which came to my attention have been excluded even when I was convinced they were true because I was not quite satisfied with the evidence for them. Investigation of other incidents secured eyewitness accounts from impeccable sources of shocking episodes, some of which are included in today’s extract. Only once I was absolutely satisfied about the veracity of a story did it go in the book. The sources are 24 carat.’

Confronting criticism that the serialisation and publication of the book is simply a ploy to boost sales and circulation, Rawnsley says:

‘It is a journalist’s duty to both himself and to his readers to be unflinchingly truthful about the flaws of the powerful. It is equally an obligation to give credit where it is due. The book strives to offer a balanced account of Labour’s time in office, highlighting the achievements as well as exploring the failures. In today’s serialisation, you can also sample part of the account of the financial crisis during which Gordon Brown displayed some of his positive attributes as a leader. In October 2008, even those cabinet colleagues and civil servants who were otherwise in utter despair about the prime minister were admiring of the boldness and imagination with which he reacted to the crisis by producing a blueprint for saving the financial system which was broadly copied around the world.

‘The Good Gordon and the Bad Brown co-exist in the clever, proud, sensitive, raging, tearful, tormented, complex man who has ruled Britain for nearly three years and now asks for his tenure to be extended for another five. Before they make their choice, the public deserves to be fully acquainted with both Browns.’

I couldn’t agree more.