By SIMON WALTERS, MAIL ON SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITORGordon Brown ordered to 'curb volcanic temper' after he was accused of abusing Downing Street staff
The unprecedented rebuke, delivered by Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell, emerged amid explosive disclosures about Mr Brown’s wild and violent outbursts.
The Prime Minister was forced to go on television last night to deny he had physically assaulted his aides as a new book claimed:
- Sir Gus ordered an official inquiry into allegations of bullying by Mr Brown.
- Paranoid Mr Brown grabbed an aide violently and shouted: ‘They’re out to get me!’
- The raging PM thumped the rear of the front seat of his car so hard that it scared the bodyguard sitting in it; while an aide sitting next to Mr Brown thought the PM was going to smash him in the face.
- Mr Brown dragged a No10 secretary from her chair and took over at her keyboard.
- He manhandled a senior adviser who told him he was late for a meeting with VIPs, yelling: ‘Why do I have to meet these ****ing people!’
The bombshell revelations, some of which were reported by The Mail on Sunday three weeks ago, feature in The End Of The Party, a new book by respected political journalist Andrew Rawnsley.
This newspaper has also uncovered new evidence of Mr Brown’s extraordinary eruptions, including an incident in which he hurled a tirade of foul-mouthed abuse at Bank of England Governor Mervyn King in a stand-up row.
A ranting Mr Brown lashed out at Mr King’s ‘****ing ego’ and accused him of talking ‘****ing bull****’ in a heated confrontation at an economic summit in America.
The new wave of allegations prompted Mr Brown to make another extraordinary plea on television last night, just one week after his tearful exchange with Piers Morgan about the death of his daughter Jennifer.
In a determined attempt to rebut the new claims against him, he said: ‘I have never, never hit anyone in my life. I don’t do these sorts of things. Any allegations that have been made about hitting people or anything are completely untrue.’
However, Mr Rawnsley’s book paints a very different picture of Mr Brown, portraying him as a lonely and desperate figure prone to extraordinary and frightening fits of temper, lashing out without warning and at the slightest provocation. Mr Rawnsley says Sir Gus intervened after he was told of a series of complaints by Downing Street staff of bullying by Mr Brown. It led to an inquiry that resulted in Sir Gus telling the Prime Minister to curb his ‘volcanic temper’.
The mandarin told the Prime Minister to change his behaviour with the stern rebuke: ‘This is no way to get things done.’
The book claims that after the on-off Election fiasco of 2007, in which Mr Brown was taunted by David Cameron for ‘bottling out’ of calling a poll, he became ‘more and more paranoid’.
It was followed by a disturbing tantrum during the furore over lost child benefit data.
The Prime Minister leapt across the room and grabbed his deputy chief of staff, Gavin Kelly, by the lapels and shouted: ‘They’re out to get me!’
‘He was a lonely and desperate figure taking out his frustrations on those around him and struggling to cope with the pressures,’ says Mr Rawnsley.
The author says that in another violent clash, Mr Brown’s senior foreign affairs adviser Stewart Wood found himself on the end of a volley of abuse over a Downing Street reception for European ambassadors.
Rebuke: Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell with Gordon Brown, whom he warned to curb his temper
Mr Brown shouted: ‘Why have I got to meet these ****ing people! Why are you making me meet these ****ing people!’ He then allegedly ‘roughly shoved aside’ Mr Wood.
Mr Rawnsley also states that Mr Brown became so furious with a No10 secretary that he ‘turfed her out of her seat and took over the keyboard’.
Sir Gus was so disturbed by Mr Brown’s conduct, says Mr Rawnsley, that he acted to ‘calm down frightened duty clerks, badly treated telephone operators and other bruised staff by telling them, “Don’t take it personally.”’
In another astonishing incident, Mr Brown is said to have become enraged in his official car when told a piece of bad news by an aide who was travelling with him in the rear of the limousine.
‘He clenched his fist and thumped the back of the passenger seat so hard that the protection officer in front flinched with shock,’ says the book. The aide who broke the news to him ‘cowered because he feared the Prime Minister was about to hit him in the face’, Mr Rawnsley adds.
Sir Gus last night denied Mr Rawnsley’s claims. A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘It is categorically not the case that the Cabinet Secretary asked for an investigation of the PM’s treatment of No 10 staff. These assertions have been put to the Cabinet Secretary who has rejected them.’
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘These malicious allegations are totally without foundation and have never been put to No 10.’
Last night Mr Brown was asked by Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy about the claims in the new book.
The newsreader asked: ‘A whole slew of new allegations are being made by Andrew Rawnsley, so let’s hear about you at work. Do you get angry at your staff? Do you swear at them? Do you throw things?’
Mr Brown replied: ‘If I get angry, I get angry with myself.’
KGM: ‘Do you throw things?’
PM: ‘No, I throw the newspapers on the floor or something like that, but please . . .’
KGM: ‘Have you ever hit anyone?’
PM: ‘I have never hit anybody in my life.’
KGM: ‘You know this is all what’s being said . . .’
PM: ‘Let me just say absolutely clearly, so that there is no misunderstanding about that, I have never, never hit anybody in my life.’
KGM: ‘Or shoved them?’
PM: ‘No, I don’t do these sorts of things. Look, I was brought up . . . my father, I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone.’
Stumbling over his words, he added: ‘In the heat of the moment, you say things sometimes, of course you do get angry, mostly with yourself.
‘But I’m very strong-willed, I’m very determined, I think the country wants someone that will push things forward and not allow things to be stagnant and stale. Any allegations that have been made about hitting people or anything are completely untrue.’
Claims: Andrew Rawnsley, pictured in 2007 with Gordon Brown, details allegations about the Prime Minister's temper in a new book
Friends of Mr Brown openly admit he is prone to outbursts of extreme anger. The Mail on Sunday has been told of an extraordinary clash with Mervyn King at a G8 economic summit in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2004 when Mr Brown was Chancellor.
The two men fell out over whether to announce that the US authorities were able to track nearly all financial transactions involving more than £1,000 in the West, including Britain, as part of their anti-terrorist checks.
Mr King told Mr Brown he wanted to make the issue public but found himself on the receiving end of a furious personal onslaught by Mr Brown, who ordered aides out of the room as the two men slugged it out.
Mr Brown told Mr King that a public announcement could backfire by alerting terrorists, and questioned Mr King’s motives for going public with the matter.
‘You are doing this because of your ****ing ego, that’s why,’ shouted Mr Brown, who could be clearly heard by officials from the Bank of England and the Government outside. ‘You are talking ****ing bull****.’
‘Mr King answered back, but it was mainly the PM,’ said one official. Mr Brown won the argument and the US monitoring remained secret, though it was revealed by the American Press two years later.
Three weeks ago, The Mail on Sunday disclosed that the Prime Minister was facing accusations that he hit a senior adviser and hurled foul-mouthed abuse at aides while distraught over an alleged snub by President Barack Obama. Mr Brown’s allies denied the claims.
However, the Prime Minister’s attempt to rebut reports about his behaviour were undermined by one of his closest Ministers yesterday.
International Aid Minister Douglas Alexander was challenged by John Humphrys on Radio 4’s Today programme about claims in memoirs by former Labour general secretary Peter Watt. As The Mail on Sunday revealed last month, Mr Watt says that in 2007, Mr Alexander told him: ‘We have spent ten years working with this guy, and we don’t actually like him. We have always thought the longer the British public had to get to know him, the less they would like him as well.’
Asked repeatedly by Mr Humphrys to deny making the remark, Mr Alexander merely said it wasn’t his view. Humphrys asked: ‘You didn’t like him, did you?’
Alexander: ‘I have always supported Gordon Brown. I have worked with him for more than 20 years. He’s a man with great strengths. I haven’t actually read Peter’s book.’
Humphrys: ‘To be quite clear – you never did say that about Gordon Brown?
Alexander: ‘As I’ve said at the time, that wasn’t my view.’
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