In The Brown Stuff.

For those who didn't know, journalist Andrew Rawnsley has just published a book that makes pisspoor Prime Minister Gordon Brown look like an unstable, violent and mentally incompetent nincompoop. Do we really deserve to be lead by a man like this?

...During one rage, while in his official car, Brown clenched his fist in fury after being told some unwelcome news and then thumped the back of the passenger seat with such force that a protection officer sitting in the front flinched with shock. The aide sitting next to Brown, who had just told him the information that provoked the outburst, cowered because he feared "that the prime minister was about to hit him in the face".

Rawnsley writes that "the cream upholstery of the seat-back in front of Brown was flecked with black marks. When having a meltdown the prime minister would habitually stab it with his black marker pen"... [Source]

Whether Brown is a liability is pretty much like asking if being set on fire really hurts. But how can such a man stay in power? Well, like most abusive arseholes, he actually depends on his victims to make excuses for him, to let him off the hook.

According to Rawnsley, O'Donnell was so disturbed by the effect on those in Downing Street that he took it upon himself to try "to calm down frightened duty clerks, badly treated phone operators and other bruised staff by telling them, 'Don't take it personally'". [Source]

Yep, don't take physical assault or mental abuse personally. Tsk, don't you realise you're simply making things worse? Never mind that this is the sort of behaviour that leads to tribunals or criminal prosecutions.

Even Rawnsley himself seems sucked into this bizarre psychology, that leaves the victim both vulnerable and complicit in their own abuse. It's not his fault, he just gets angry sometimes! Why, he can be a good man sometimes..!

However, the book does show the softer side of the prime minister, recounting how he is capable of being incredibly solicitous towards colleagues at times of family emergency and bereavement. [Source]

Yeah, that makes up for manhandling people, throwing phones, being horrible to female staff and acting like a deranged thug. And then there was his single-handed rescue of the world economy which, err, shackled us with even more debt, inflation and unsustainable public expenditure.

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.

One wonders if one should laugh or cry at this point.

Of course, the truth is that Brown, like all abusers, ultimately only has the power others allow him. By making excuses and clinging to the vain myth that this unpleasant, stunted man can actually do anything good rather than spiteful or myopic, we allow him to continue to ruin our country, poison our culture and plunge us ever deeper into penury. Gordon Brown has helped make the Tories electable. What else need be said?