Never Make Dreams Your Master

Over at Guido Fawkes he's chosen this moment to expose Gordon Brown for the man that he is. The leader-in-waiting has been almost pitifully invisible since the Labour election defeat, a defeat that he was fully involved in campaigning to avoid. As Guido points out he shows none of the courage of those he claims to admire in his soon to be published book on the subject. But more important than that he shows none of the characteristics that mark out a real leader from someone who just craves the position. For me he has never shown those qualities that great leaders have; much as I am no fan of the Head Boy, he is so superior to Brown that it is almost frightening.

People talk of Brown's intellect, his work ethic, his brain, all the other attributes that he is supposed to have in abundance, yet has any one ever talked about his leadership skills? It's too easy to say, ah yes, but he's always been in Tony's shadow. It's true, but then again he always will be. No matter what Brown does he has not the charisma, the charm, the interpersonal skills - that special something that leaders have and those who are their number's two's always think they have - that's GB's biggest problem and always will be. He thinks he's cleverer than everyone around him, he certainly thinks he's cleverer than Blair, which he might well be in intellectual terms, but IQ, brainpower, cleverness, and being a bit of a know it all will never out trump someone who has that special something. Like it or not Blair has it and Brown will forever be the man in search of it.

About six weeks ago John Humphrys interviewed Brown and spent a long time skirting around the question as to whether or not GB thought that people liked him. It's a question that if you ask it outright can only get one answer, so as an interviewer you never want to ask it. Eventually Brown played his ace card, "his two little boys,” how much he enjoyed being married and how good was fatherhood; it was almost as though having ticked all three boxes it made him fit to be the next PM. To me Gorgon sounded not a million miles from Blunkett and the famous "little lad" speech. It's almost as though he's playing at families.

Previously the one thing that people perhaps could say about Brown is they respected him for what he has done, now even that is unravelling. So what are we left with? A man who isn't actually very likeable, who is fond of telling us all how wrong we are and how he knows what's best. At the same time those close to the clunking one have been working double time to try and soften his image, they know how damaging it is. Yet no matter what they do he will never be able to pull it off. Gordon Brown will never a leader be.