"Gordon Brown," Tom Bower

I decided to read this book because I love a good disaster story. Bower specializes in writing takedowns of unpleasant people, so I thought most of it would be scurrilous gossip a la Kitty Kelley, but a great deal of it is actually about failures of economic understanding. I know about as much about economics as George W. Bush did about the interplay of ethnic and religious forces in the Middle East, so I have conveniently translated what I could understand of the action into Liberal Arts Major-ese.

Gordon Brown, by Tom Bower: The Play

starring Our Heroes (civil servants, anybody with a working grasp of economic theory)
Gordon Brown

Act I
The setting: an office
Our Heroes: Hey, what's up? Can I look at that policy you're working on?
Gordon Brown: No, because I'm a control freak with problems! I grew up in a manse!
OH: Come on, just a tiny peek.
GB: Noooooooo!
He attempts to eat the paper, but failing, decides to hide his work by sitting on it instead.

Act II
Later that day Our Heroes sneak into the office and find that Brown's cunning plan of concealment has failed. He failed to perceive that when he got up from the chair, the notes would once again be visible to his enemies!

Our Heroes: Jesus Christ! This is an unholy marriage between neoliberal economic theory and state interference! It will never work!
Brown springs from underneath his desk. He was hiding the whole time!
GB: It will too work, because I said so!
Brown savagely beats them to death, then steals their policies for himself.
GB: I am a genius!

Choral interlude
Brown appears underneath Tony Blair's window to sing him a beautiful song. ORCHESTRA appears, Charlie Whelan on synth, Ed Balls on the panpipes.

"Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As means-tested benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not..."

WHEN'S IT MY TURN AT THE BIG JOB? YOU PROMISED, TONY!

Act III
The economic plan fails... because it was stupid!

The cycle repeats for about 300 pages, and Bower has to end with another round of this nonsense and some "what does the future hold?" speculation because he published before it became clear that Brown would get to be PM. Reading the speculation now is strangely upsetting, like reading a truncated version of "Carrie" that ends right before Carrie goes to the prom. "Would Gordon be elected prom queen? Would this be the best prom ever? I don't know, but time will tell!" Cue pigs' blood, fire, and a whole lot of laughing at you.

Anyway, now you without counting skills have read the nasty biography of Gordon Brown. Oh, I forgot, he was mean to his girlfriends for some vague reason that may or may not be actionable under libel law. Now you've read it.