Gordon Brown: Prime Minister. Tom Bower

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СКАЧАТЬ be reduced to micro-targets and micro-meddling.’ His campaign ignored the widespread disgust with the strikers, and specifically rejected any increased control over trade unions, especially over picketing and unofficial strikes. Despite dozens of friends and supporters, including Margarita, working on his behalf, Brown was defeated by 2,460 votes. Later, in the party headquarters with a group including Robin Cook and Nigel Griffiths, a local activist, he confessed his devastation. Politically, Margaret Thatcher’s victory with a majority of forty-three seats was shattering. Brown was baffled by the national mood and the unexpected end of the Labour era.

      The following morning, while television pictures showed Thatcher standing on the steps of 10 Downing Street quoting Francis of Assisi, Brown was slumped in a tattered armchair in Marchmont Road, surrounded by the debris of his campaign, contemplating his life until the next election. He had made a terrible mistake in refusing Martin O’Neill’s offer of a safe seat. No one congratulated him for fighting and losing. He would continue lecturing at the Glasgow College of Technology and the WEA, and would secure a junior researcher’s job on Ways and Means, a political programme produced by Scottish Television. After some complaints about the lack of political balance in his contributions he was moved to What’s Your Problem?, a weekly consumer programme exposing ripoffs by shops and local authorities. His productions were renowned less for their artistic qualities than for the efforts he took to rectify ills.

      His new companion was a feisty former student at Edinburgh University, Sheena McDonald, born in Dunfermline, Fife. A brief introduction at one of his university parties by his brother Andrew had been remembered when they met again while working at Scottish Television. Dark, intelligent and fun, McDonald bore some physical resemblance to Margarita, but their characters differed sharply. She was an ambitious journalist, and prized her personal independence. Unlike Margarita, she had no intention of marrying Brown, although they had much in common. Like Brown, she was a child of the manse; her father was a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

      Brown’s attitude towards women had become entrenched. He knew he was attractive. He was well built – ‘fit, with good legs’ as one admirer recalled – but he denied to himself any need to share his life with a woman, or to trust anyone beyond his immediate confidants: his two brothers, Wilf Stevenson and Murray Elder. At the end of a day he was content to go home, endlessly watch games of football on television and listen to recordings by Jessye Norman or Frank Sinatra. He was neither interested in a woman’s life nor prepared to divulge his own secrets. Confessing to any doubts or exposing his weaknesses was anathema. Nothing would be allowed to undermine his determination to portray himself as supremely self-confident. His relationship with Sheena McDonald, like his job, was temporary while he found a safe seat. The obstacles to that, however, appeared to be multiplying.

      The Labour Party in England was convulsed by defeat. In the leadership elections after Jim Callaghan resigned, the left-wing Michael Foot defeated Denis Healey by 139 votes to 129. The parliamentary Labour Party had patently misread the electoral result. Rather than distancing themselves from the wild antics of the militant trade unions, a majority of Labour MPs sought to encourage them. The growing split in the English party between sympathisers of the neo-Marxist Militant Tendency and the traditional socialists only partially infected the Scottish party, but Brown’s comrades nevertheless were embroiled in bitter disagreements about personalities and ideology. ‘Anyone who can survive that viciousness,’ sighed Jimmy Allison, ‘can survive anything.’ In that battle Brown represented the traditional Tribunites on the party’s executive, the ethical socialist rather than the Marxist. He faced hard-liners including George Galloway, the son of Irish immigrants, and Bill Speirs, a future general secretary of the Scottish TUC. For hours every week they battled about the transfer of power to left-wing activists, and whether Tony Benn and the left’s caucus should be supported despite Benn’s refusal to accept collective responsibility. Resisting any dalliance with those outside the mainstream, Brown argued against factionalism and declined invitations by Galloway and Speirs to join their group in the pub after meetings. He would insist that he was engaged in intellectual rather than malicious, personalised debates, and preferred to talk with the trade unionists. Both Galloway and Speirs, he believed, were blocking his promotion and influence. They would deny any subterfuge, although neither was particularly fond of Brown. In Galloway’s opinion he was an egghead, a brainy backroom boy and a workaholic policy wonk, but not an intellectual. Galloway believed him to be ambitiously manoeuvring to build relationships for his own personal advancement, rather than trying to build a better society. ‘He’s chosen not to be a comrade,’ agreed Speirs.

      Their disagreements mirrored the sectarian division within the Scottish Labour Party. Galloway, a Catholic from the west coast, did not warm to Brown’s east coast Presbyterianism. He was scathing about Brown’s silences at the late-night meetings held by Alex Murray, a famed Scottish trade unionist in Ayrshire, at which Brown refrained from engaging in the debates. He was also irritated that Brown, despite being steeped in the history of the Labour movement, appeared to be motivated by instinctive beliefs rather than philosophy. Not an original thinker, concluded Galloway, nor a man who had suffered grinding poverty. As Galloway fondly repeated, the divisions within the Scottish Labour Party ran deep, and as with all divisions within a family, the disagreements were aggravated by personality differences. Brown’s idiosyncrasies could be particularly aggravating. While chairing the party’s Scottish Council, he would pull bits of paper out of his bulging plastic bag, say, ‘See, this is how we deliver,’ and list twenty points.

      The disagreements intensified in 1980. In England, the Militant Tendency and the Bennites were emasculating the Labour Party. In Scotland, by contrast, the party was divided over unilateral disarmament and withdrawal from NATO, but remained united as a coherent group, despite outbursts of ill-discipline. The rows irritated Brown. At a meeting on 14 November 1981 he was disturbed that Galloway, representing the hard left, berated Michael Foot for not supporting Tony Benn against Denis Healey in the election for deputy leader. Brown had attached himself to the soft-left, Neil Kinnock tendency, advocating a ‘moral crusade’ to rebuild Labour’s appeal to voters. His personal response to the warfare was ‘One Person, One Vote’, a lacklustre pamphlet attacking the trade unions’ undemocratic use of the block vote to wield influence. All his other ideas had been rejected by the electorate. His support for John Silkin, a forlorn London lawyer, as deputy leader confirmed his own isolation from the realities in London. With a general election expected within two years, he still faced huge hurdles if he was to find a safe parliamentary seat. New hopes rested on his election in 1982 as the Scottish party’s vice-chairman and on a journalistic scoop – publishing an internal document of Britoil, an oil company operating in the North Sea which was on the verge of privatisation. The ‘strictly confidential’ document showed that the company’s profits would not grow for five years. The scoop, he hoped, would discourage private investors from buying Britoil shares from the government, but he was to be disappointed by the response. Despite his high profile and his loyal efforts for the party, he still sensed that he suffered handicaps. He sought advice from Jimmy Allison. ‘Get your nose in with the unions,’ Allison advised, adding that he would need to neutralise the opposition of the communists, who possessed sufficient influence in the Scottish Labour Party to veto any aspirant.

      The most approachable trade unionist was Jimmy McIntyre, a popular leader of the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU). McIntyre was concerned that in television interviews, compared to their employers, his members made fools of themselves. Brown agreed to organise a media course for Scottish shop stewards, using role playing – ‘You’re on strike, what do you tell media?’ In return, he expected McIntyre to help him gain selection for a safe seat. He also sought advice from Robin Cook. At a meal in a Chinese restaurant in Soho arranged by Murray Elder, Brown asked Cook for help. ‘I am sure you will do very well, Gordon,’ Cook replied. Brown repeated his request and, he told his authorised biographer Paul Routledge, received the same non-committal reply. They did however agree to co-author a book. Scotland: The Real Divide, a collection of essays about poverty, would be published the following year.

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