Gordon Clown .Com

Gordon Brown is set to face a major headache just as he takes over as leader of the Labour party, an event that now looks to be mere weeks away.  It has recently transpired that Labour, who have long been running close to the wire in financial terms as witnessed by the various loans for peerages scandals that have come to light in recent years, are £5m in the hole for party funding.  When installed in office around the beginning of July, Gordon will have to go cap-in-hand to any and all who may cough up to keep Labour from going bankrupt.

Tony Blair has screwed Gordon again, somewhat, as it appears that a few rather sizeable loans taken out during his time are due for repayment very soon after Gordon takes over, and with the good favour of Tony amongst the wealthy a thing of the past, it now appears that those loans are likely to be called in.  The scale of the Labour party’s debts are staggering, and perhaps only outdone by the massive debt that Gordon has put the country in during his 10 years as chancellor.

On 13 September, Lord Sainsbury, the former science minister, is expecting £2 million to be returned.

On 30 September, £1 million is due to Nigel Morris, co-founder of Capital One Financial Corporation, and £400,000 should go to businessman Derek Tullett.

Sir Gulam Noon, the Indian food tycoon, is due to have £250,000 repaid on 30 October.

Another £1 million is owed to developer Barry Townsley in April, and two loans of £500,000 each from former Capita boss Rod Aldridge are due in autumn 2008.

The loans were taken out on Mr Blair’s orders during a panic over funding for the 2005 election. A police inquiry is thought to have recommended charges be brought over allegations that some of Mr Blair’s officials dangled honours, including peerages in front of wealthy backers.

Labour also owes £2 million to fashion magnate Richard Caring for a loan taken out last year and repayable next February.

Channel 4’s Dispatches programme tonight examined some of the personality traits that Gordon is said to exhibit behind closed doors that may betray his unfit state to govern the country.  Chief among these was his propensity to only listen to a very small group of so-called “trusted advisors”, those from the past such as Geoffrey Robinson and Charlie Whelan, both now fairly disgraced, and present advisors such as Ed Balls.  Brown was portrayed in the programme as a control freak whose treatment of other ministers and colleagues ranges from ignoring them to bullying them and worse.

“I’ve been a political journalist for fifteen years and have closely followed the career of Gordon Brown. I have written pieces that both criticize and praise the Chancellor but one thing is unarguable - he is a massive politician of exceptional gifts, the kind of figure that comes along once in a generation - and in a few weeks time he’ll be Prime Minister. And yet some very senior figures on his own side are certain he is unfit for office - one has called him a ‘control freak’, another ‘psychologically flawed’ and one serving cabinet minister has said he’d be a ‘f***ing disaster’,” says Peter Oborne.

Again and again examples are given of how Brown snubbed, cut, bullied, ignored and ploughed his own furrow. Even friends acknowledge the problem. The film examines a double allegation of a refusal to collaborate with his colleagues allied to vindictiveness against those who threaten to stand in his way. These character traits have mainly been concealed from the public but they have shown themselves in a series of feuds, particularly with potential challengers; for example his clashes with Robin Cook, Mo Mowlam, Peter Mandelson and Alan Milburn.

Brown’s relationship with Blair is also put under scrutiny. Brown arrived at 11 Downing Street still believing he should be the man in No.10. He’d been given by Blair unprecedented authority over economic and domestic policy. Brown has interpreted this as a licence to defy No. 10.

Numerous and authoritative accounts of Brown’s behaviour in government, the sulks and surliness, refusal to co-operate - according to one extremely well-placed insider he even stormed into No 10 and hurled obscenities at Tony Blair - paint a very different picture from the warm man loved by his friends.

In conclusion Peter says, “Gordon Brown is going to be the next Prime Minister. It’s important for all of us - except perhaps the Conservative opposition - that he should be a success. But we’re taking a giant leap in the dark. Gordon Brown is a brilliant man, capable of great warmth and human decency - but he’s also very closed, clannish, suspicious, tormented and very difficult to deal with. The success of his premiership depends on whether, when he attains his lifetime ambition and enters No.10 Downing Street, he can become a changed character.”

Only time will tell whether Gordon genuinely can change his character and reverse the clear flaws which have been demonstrated by his time in Number 11.  The odds don’t look good.