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Thirty new facts about Gordon Brown

from Anthony Seldon's book

Brown at 10 is chock-full of revelations

Gordon Brown with Barack Obama. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

Anthony Seldon's instant history factory is a national treasure. He has written a political biography of John Major, two about Tony Blair and recently he published one about Gordon Brown. It's got about the worst title of any political book published this year – Brown at 10, which makes Brown sound like a news bulletin, rather than a prime minister – but it's a must-read for anyone who wants to know what really happened in the final three years of the Labour government. Seldon, who wrote this book with Guy Lodge, has probably managed to interview more primary sources (particularly civil servants) than anyone else writing about Brown and what makes the book remarkable is not the analysis (which is intelligent and judicious, but not particularly surprising), but the rich array of behind-the-scenes detail.

There has already been quite a lot about the book in the papers already. The Daily Mail published extracts covering the 2010 ministerial plot against Brown, ("Harriet the traitor"), Brown's chaotic leadership styleand his role in the banking crisis. The Mail on Sunday has also written stories based on the book about how Brown apparently ruined Tony Blair's chances of becoming president of Europe and about Brown's relationship with Barack Obama. So, when I read it, I thought I would struggle to find much that was new.

I was wrong. It's chock-full of revelations. Here are 30 of them.

1. Brown tried to get Andrew Lloyd Webber to join his government as a cultural ambassador.

2. Brown wrote a letter to George Bush after their first meeting after Brown became prime minister saying: "I hope you will find that I am straightforward, direct, and will do exactly as I say."

3. Brown spoke "much more often" to Bush than he later did to Barack Obama.

4. Brown often swore about having to meet foreign dignitaries. "'Why the fuck are you making me do this?' he would complain to [Tom Fletcher, his foreign policy adviser] before almost every such meeting," Seldon and Lodge write.

5. One of the reasons why Brown arrived late for the signing of the Lisbon treaty was because the Commons liaison committee refused a Downing Street request to start its hearing with him that day at 8am. The committee complained that this would involve "disrespecting parliament".

6. Ed Balls is reported to have said: "Every appointment that Gordon has ever made on his own has been a disaster." Seldon and Lodge quote this in relation to the appointment of Stephen Carter to Downing Street.

7. Brown is not able to read newsprint easily. According to Seldon and Lodge, he has to rely on others to keep him informed about what's in the papers.

8. Brown tried to get parliament to vote for 42-day pre-charge detention to please the Murdoch press, his colleagues believe. "Blair made it very clear to Gordon that he had to come across as tough; the News International people would worry if he was not. That is why he did 42 days," Balls told the authors.

9. When Brown met Obama in Downing Street before Obama was elected president, Brown's sons were brought in to extend the length of the meeting because Brown wanted to keep Obama in No 10 for as long as possible.

10. When Harriet Harman stood in for Brown during the summer holidays in 2008, she was overheard telling a cabinet colleague: "I don't know how Gordon manages to make this job seem so difficult."

11. When a Foreign Office official asked David Miliband why he wrote the Guardian article in the summer of 2008 that was seen as a leadership bid, Miliband replied: "There's a time in one's life when a man has to do what a man has to do."

12. The line "it's no time for a novice" that Brown used in his conference speech in 2008 originally came from Rebekah Wade, the then-editor of the Sun. Balls heard her use it at a party, and suggested that Brown should use it in his speech.

13. Ed Miliband also contributed to the "novice" line in the speech. Miliband suggested that Brown should introduce the line with the phrase "I'm all in favour of apprenticeships but ... " (The line was percieved as a jibe against Miliband's brother, David, as well as against David Cameron.)

14. Brown received a Christmas card from David Cameron saying "Merry Christmas from me and 'the props'" after Brown accused Cameron of using his children as props in his 2008 conference speech.

15. Brown once bamboozled the interpreter when he used the phrase "naked short-selling" in a conversation with Nicolas Sarkozy. The interpreter did not understand the technical City term (which means selling shares without owning them) and translated it literally, causing some confusion.

16. Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, said that Brown was "more impressive than any US politician" after a three-hour conversation with him.

17. Brown tried to hire the former Sun editor David Yelland as a spin doctor. Yelland refused because he felt he did not have the right experience.

18. Balls is credited with persuading Brown to stop Alistair Darling announcing a future VAT rise in the 2008 pre-budget report. Yvette Cooper believed it was one of Balls's most significant interventions during Brown's premiership.

19. Harman wanted to show world leaders a slide show on equality issues at the G20 summit in London. "'It shows that she simply didn't get what was going on,' recalls one No 10 official."

20. Brown always goes to church when he is in his contituency.

21. Barack Obama was nicknamed "Spock" by British officials after his election. "'Almost everyone felt a little unloved by Obama. Not for nothing was his nickname 'Spock',' says one Foreign Office official."

22. Silvio Berlusconi fell asleep at the Downing Street dinner for world leaders before the G20 summit in London in 2009.

23. Sarah Brown persuaded her husband to use YouTube to make his announcement about MPs' expenses. Brown himself was unhappy with the recording and wanted to redo it, but there was no time.

24. Brown was planning to announce a "recall" mechanism for MPs in 2008. But he changed his mind because he thought the procedure would be used against ministers. (The coalition government is now pressing ahead with the idea.)

25. Brown considered sending Christmas cards to the families of servicemen and women killed in Afghanistan. But the idea was dropped, partly because there were fears that the government did not have up-to-date addresses for them all.

26. Brown stopped speaking to Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, towards the end of his premiership because he thought King was taking a political stance in the argument about deficit reduction.

27. Nick Macpherson, the permanent secretary to the Treasury, despaired of Brown's refusal to accept the need for a tougher stance on reducing the deficit. "He just doesn't get it," Macpherson often told colleagues.

28. Originally Brown spent much of Monday, much of Tuesday and all Wednesday morning preparing for prime minister's questions. In his second year he was still spending four hours on Monday, four hours on Tuesday and all Wednesday morning on PMQs. In his final year he was doing roughly the same as Blair: two hours on Tuesday, and Wednesday morning. Ironically, Brown's aides found that the less time he spent on PMQs, the better he was.

29. Brown phoned Douglas Alexander, Labour's election co-ordinator, to apologise on the night before polling day. "I'm sorry I thought I could turn it around," Brown said.

30. When Brown first tried to resign on the Tuesday afternoon after the general election, Buckingham Palace told him that the Queen would not accept his resignation because no one was ready to form a new government. Brown said that he would be willing to stay on, but only at the express request of the Queen. Subsequently the Queen said she would accept his resignation.