Gordon Brown Prime Minister

First of all I have to admit I 'speed read' this book in one afternoon; not because it was boring but because I was short of time. I also have to admit that I don't have more than an average voter's skill in remembering political events. I started off thinking "this is a hatchet job" changing my mind to "murderous hatchet job" and then to "oh, my, what have we got ourselves into?" Every biography/autobiography is necessarily subjective and every event distorted by being remembered, but one can't help feeling, after reading this book, that we, the hapless, tax paying voters may remember New Labour not quite in the way that its progenitors intended when we finally get to find out the truth (or as near as we are ever going to get). Will they raise a statue to Gordon Brown?

"Hello-style" Biography (5/7 people found this helpful)

Tom Bower's book is disappointing from several standpoints.
The first is that most of his quotations are unattributed. This really questions whether they were true. Or, did he just make them up and embroider them a bit? This devalues the whole text - what can we believe?

Then, he occasionally tells us that "X" thought something, when I am sure that he had no way of knowing what that person was thinking at that time. Wishful thinking perhaps.

He has taken the majority of his material from newspapers and we all know how inaccurate and biased they are! He doesn't seem to read books.

This book was serious waste of paper; it jumped to conclusions without substantiating them. It wanted to prove a point but just screamed headlines instead. It was not a balanced political biography.

If only 10% is true (5/5 people found this helpful)

If only 10% of this book is true we are dealing with a VERY dangerous Prime Minister who after 10 years of waiting hasn't a clue what to do and is so indicisive he can't even buy his own clothes.

The indications are that he will be a poor PM but we will see.

A book worth reading if you want to be shocked about the billions wasted in the last 10 years ... I was.

Many Inconvenient Truths (3/4 people found this helpful)

Magnificently well researched, authoritative, indexed and referenced. Bower is well known for independent, 'no holds barred' biographies which others call vindictiveness. But it is not his job to be the subjects PR man and you can rely on the fact that he isn't printing spin from the subject. The book is relentlessly negative about Brown because that is what the facts suggest. It is the facts of Brown's failure and manoeuvring over the last ten years that are negative not the writing.

In classic Brown style he "intimated" to be interviewed but never responded to attempts to arrange an interview. This book has the quality of not being a spin exercise and an Orwellian opportunity for Brown to re-write history as with Routledge's effort.

So-called mistakes are nothing of the sort for example George Galloway was born a Catholic (easily searched). But no book is published without small mistakes, Tony Wright was mistakenly called a councillor when he was an MP from 1992.

It is written in a refreshingly anti-political way which means no spin, no couching, no obfuscating and is especially revealing in the use of economic and financial figures.

There are not that many revelations to someone who follows politics closely but for the average voter this book will be dynamite. And to most readers the relentless catalogue of failures and political manoeuvring is mind-boggling and horrific. The last ten years will make sense after reading this book. This book is a must to read before the next election.

An unfair victimisation (2/4 people found this helpful)

This book fails as the serous political biography it so desperately wants to be.
Half way through the book the bottom line is Bower does not like Brown and has decided to write one long personal desiccation of the new prime Minster's character that would be more suited for the pages of Heat magazine and often has the clarity and balance of a tabloid columnist. Brown is often painted in a negative light thought out the many pages a emotionally incompetent controlling unemphatic and weak willed man is sketched out for the reader one wonders if this book were ghost written by one of Browns many political foes.
We learn nothing of Browns philosophies his formative years rushed through in style befitting a Harold Robins novel. The writing style is gossipy and he said she said is the main melody. Brown's reactions to situations seem presumptuous or to be blunt fictionalized to add more paprika to this more then spiced enough mix obscuring it's bland premises.
You can imagine a group of secondary school girls or office stooges gossip about their headmaster or manager in this kind of fashion.
The book is a time pass to Bower's credit it is easy to get into but I'm sure I will finish it none the wiser on who Gordon Brown really is and what he really stand's for.

Gordon Brown Prime Minister

Tom Bower

Reader Reviews:

Well, knock me down with a haggis? (0/0 people found this helpful)

"Hello-style" Biography (5/7 people found this helpful)

If only 10% is true (5/5 people found this helpful)

Many Inconvenient Truths (3/4 people found this helpful)

An unfair victimisation (2/4 people found this helpful)

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