{"id":753383,"date":"2026-08-29T08:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T08:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753383\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T08:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T08:30:14","slug":"i-dont-want-to-be-a-backseat-driver-gordon-brown-on-burnham-billionaires-and-his-vision-for-a-better-britain-gordon-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753383\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I don\u2019t want to be a backseat driver\u2019: Gordon Brown on Burnham, billionaires \u2013 and his vision for a better Britain | Gordon Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a Monday in August and as England burns in dystopian heat, Gordon Brown<\/a> and I are in his office at the top of his house in North Queensferry, overlooking the moody waters of the Firth of Forth. It\u2019s hard to recall the top of my own sauna-like house in London as we stand here in the cool, wearing wool suits and necessary socks, my coat slung over the back of a chair. \u201cI was watching Raith Rovers \u2013 the local football team \u2013 on Saturday,\u201d Brown says, \u201cand it was really cold. There was a wind blowing in from the sea.\u201d He asks if I\u2019ve heard the famous joke \u2013 \u201cScotland\u2019s only got two seasons: July and winter\u201d\u2013 then chuckles. It\u2019s one of his favourites. (I\u2019ll hear him tell it three times today.)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say Fife has been untouched by the multiple heatwaves. They had a few sunny days. One hit 24C \u2013 \u201ca shock\u201d, Brown says, July temperatures typically being 15-17C. He stood in his kitchen and considered the modest patch of grass at the back of the house. \u201cI never imagined being out in the garden in the summer. I never imagined it because it\u2019s either raining or too cold.\u201d Once out, he found himself battling a \u201cvery dangerous\u201d nest of wasps. One family member was stung, then there was the rigmarole of specialists in thick gloves and protective suits undertaking its removal. By the time that was done, the sun had gone in.<\/p>\n

Climate is something we will discuss today, it being something of a wasps\u2019 nest. Also: Donald Trump, Europe, Andy Burnham and the Labour party. The former prime minister (2007-2010) and longest-serving chancellor of the exchequer in modern history (1997-2007) will touch on Iraq, the financial crisis and Scottish independence. He will give his diagnosis of the current state of global politics, the focus of his new book, The Future Starts With Us<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s telling is how much people still want to hear his views \u2013 arguably far more than any of the six broken PMs since (tickets for his forthcoming book events in Bath and Edinburgh sold out in minutes). Many feel we didn\u2019t know how lucky we were with Brown and his old-school sense of duty. At the time we saw him as a brooding toad, a hangdog, grizzled pessimist, instead of prizing his gratitude and prudence. His father\u2019s booming refrain was \u201cBe thankful for what you have; you can cope with a lot less!\u201d so perhaps it wasn\u2019t surprising Brown did not cash in when he left No 10. Did not take a fat job in banking, a knighthood, or even the prime ministerial pension to which he\u2019s entitled.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s aware that, as a political heavyweight, his views on Labour still count and that he has a reputation for micromanagement, so initially he\u2019s careful when I ask about Burnham. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be a backseat driver,\u201d he says, settling into a tub chair next to a wall of books (political biographies, political philosophy, a first edition Keynes). But can he help himself? No, he cannot. A second later he\u2019s saying he \u201chopes\u201d Burnham will heed a report he did for Keir Starmer recommending abolishing the House of Lords<\/a> and replacing it with an elected chamber \u201crepresentative of all the regions and nations of the country, which fits in with Andy\u2019s idea that the regions and the nations are going to have a bigger voice\u201d.<\/p>\n

He reminds me the Lords is an unelected chamber of about 800, \u201cthe second largest legislature in the world after China\u201d. It\u2019s packed to the Pugin rafters with lobbyists. The problem will be persuading them to vote to cut their own throats. \u201cBut something\u2019s got to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

As prime minister, with then health secretary Andy Burnham, in March 2010 \u2026 Photograph: Stefan Rousseau\/AFP\/Getty Images\u2026 and with his wife Sarah and their sons after his resignation two months later. Photograph: Ben Stansall\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Brown calls Burnham \u201cAndy\u201d. He has known him a long time. Burnham\u2019s first cabinet job was under Brown as chief secretary to the Treasury (later, he was health secretary in Brown\u2019s government). Brown\u2019s official role under Burnham is as an adviser overseeing the G20, which Britain hosts next year. He was brought in to do it by Starmer (remember the photo op<\/a> of him going in to No 10 with Harriet Harman?), along with an overhaul of defence spending. Brown doesn\u2019t deny that Burnham sought his advice before appointing Brown\u2019s friend and former parliamentary private secretary John Healey as chancellor, but says, \u201cMy advice would\u2019ve been not to take my advice.\u201d (It\u2019s the same line he used when journalists asked if he\u2019d been advising Rachel Reeves.)<\/p>\n

Not that he doesn\u2019t have plenty of advice to give: \u201cLook, the British economy was growing about 2.5% a year when I was chancellor, and now it\u2019s growing about 1% a year. So I do believe, as I said to Andy, that the focus on Britain as an innovation nation is an important part of the solution to this growth deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Someone brings me a tea and Brown a glass of still water. He hasn\u2019t had caffeine since he overdid it during the financial crisis in 2008, and recently gave up sparkling for \u201creasons of health\u201d. (No joke, his rider for book events is tap water. An adviser adds, \u201cAnd maybe a banana.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Since leaving office, Brown has popped his head above the parapet on specific issues: Brexit<\/a>, antisemitism<\/a>, universal credit<\/a>. He is gravely concerned about the far right, more popular in Europe now than before fascists seized power in the 1930s. The number of truly liberal democracies has dropped to its lowest level in three decades \u2013 29, he writes in his book. \u201cSome fear we are approaching a moment comparable to the run-up to the second world war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the issue is that the postwar rules-based order no longer exists. We have moved from a \u201cunipolar\u201d to a \u201cmultipolar\u201d world in which leaders promote a sort of zero fucks nationalism \u2013 America First, Italy First, Russia First. \u201cPutin feels he can ignore the rule of law with impunity,\u201d Brown says. \u201cNetanyahu feels the same. In my book, I\u2019ve got quotes from each explicitly saying it\u2019s all about power now. If you\u2019ve got the power, you use it. It doesn\u2019t matter what the morality of what you\u2019re doing is. I\u2019ve got Trump saying, \u2018I decide what my morality is. I don\u2019t take moral lectures from anybody.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markPeople are angry. Rightly so, because things they took for granted have somehow been undermined<\/p>\n

This posturing is behind Putin and Netanyahu\u2019s indiscriminate bloody slaughters in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, behind America\u2019s devastating attacks on Iran (\u201chospitals and schools should never be subject to bombing in any war\u201d). But also, Brown says, \u201cAmerica was not able to stop the invasion of Ukraine, even though they knew about it in advance. And the Americans are not telling the Israelis actually to respect the idea that Palestine should have sovereignty. When I was prime minister and Israel invaded Gaza in 2009, the Americans told them to get out and they left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown met Netanyahu a few times when the Israeli leader was finance minister and he was chancellor. \u201cHe\u2019s changed dramatically,\u201d Brown says, then corrects himself, because \u201che\u2019s always been obsessed with Iran. For 20 years it\u2019s been the country that he wanted to neutralise or destabilise. So I\u2019m not surprised that he persuaded Trump to [bomb].\u201d<\/p>\n

But were seeds of these violations not sown with the Iraq war, which he supported with Tony Blair<\/a> in 2003? \u201cTo some extent, the interventions in the years from 2000. You can go back to the Vietnam war, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has long admitted he made a \u201cmistake\u201d with Iraq. He felt \u201cmisled\u201d when he learned, through a document he saw after he left government, that the US knew Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction in 2002. Had he known, would he have resigned? \u201cYes. I would not have been able to support the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blair now sits on Trump\u2019s Board of Peace. While it\u2019s promoted as an alternative peacekeeping agency, Brown sees it as essentially a corporate exercise. Its founding document, Brown argues, is closer \u201cto an international property developer under the guise of making peace\u201d. I begin a question and he interrupts: \u201cI know what you\u2019re going to ask.\u201d What? \u201cAbout Tony Blair. I don\u2019t want to talk about Tony Blair.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Keir Starmer and Tony Blair in September 2022, when Charles was proclaimed the new king \u2026 Photograph: Kirsty O\u2019Connor\/AFP\/Getty Images\u2026 and with Starmer again, on Brown\u2019s return to Downing Street in May this year. Photograph: Simon Dawson\/No 10 Downing Street<\/p>\n

In his book, Brown writes that the US \u201cmay\u201d have a new president in 2028. Why \u201cmay\u201d and not \u201cwill\u201d, given the two-term limit? Does he believe there won\u2019t be an election? \u201cNo, Trump\u2019s never been against elections. He\u2019s just against results he doesn\u2019t like.\u201d What might this mean for the UK-US relationship? \u201cThe thing about that is, no matter what you think of any individual, you\u2019ve got to try and make it work. Keir Starmer, to his credit, tried. Andy Burnham<\/a> will try. Nobody\u2019s saying they are going to be soulmates. You want to make it work without the abandonment of any principle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s suggestion for dealing with the spiralling global chaos is to get back to a rules-based world ASAP, with an \u201cupdated\u201d commitment to \u201cthe rule of law, democratic accountability, respect for human rights, freedom of assembly, international cooperation, humanitarian aid, environmental stewardship. People are angry,\u201d he continues. \u201cRightly so, because things they took for granted have somehow been undermined.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he skates over the role played by social media in the darkening of the political discourse, except to say it\u2019s a \u201cshouting match without an umpire\u201d. Tech bros are the pied pipers of our children\u2019s attention, I say. He points to a local Facebook group, Love Kirkcaldy!<\/a> which, to him, exemplifies the positive way people come together online. He stresses \u2013 and this is a big theme of his book \u2013 one answer to tackling issues in national politics and international geopolitics lies at home. We need to refocus on our local communities: \u201cStronger communities will give us a stronger resistance to extremism.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markMy advice would be not to take my advice Photograph: Margaret Mitchell\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The book is dedicated to the people of Kirkcaldy, where Brown is an active force. We visit the Cottage Family Centre, a charity of which he is patron that helps under-16s and their families. During Covid I visited one of the charity\u2019s two sites. A volunteer said that, on hearing about two children who were sleeping on the floor, Brown had gone home and dismantled his sons\u2019 bunkbed, returning to present it to her along with sheets. (She also said he attempted to make the beds, but bodged this so comprehensively that his protection team had to take over.)<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the local multibank charity he set up: warehouses that take donations of goods from 90 companies, including Amazon, then redistribute them to the poor. I ask if he feels conflicted, given Amazon is a notoriously appalling employer with no unions. It\u2019s the only time he\u2019s a little gruff with me. \u201cMy first priority is to see if we can alleviate poverty. If Amazon is prepared to help, we will work with Amazon. If other companies are prepared to help, we will work with them. Poverty has been really severe here.\u201d He says they\u2019ve probably turned over \u00a3250m worth of goods to people who really need them. \u201cSo for a small charity just starting off \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also his work as a UN special envoy for global education. He tells me about going to see Gianni Infantino, the controversial president of Fifa, four years ago at the organisation\u2019s HQ in Zurich with proposals of how to raise a billion dollars for global education through donations. \u201cAnd you know the boardroom table is gold. There is a lot of conspicuous consumption on display.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy only worry is we are not talking enough about my book,\u201d Brown says when we are back in his protection team\u2019s Range Rover. We are talking about the book, I stress. In fact, trying to get the interview back on track when Brown talks about the book is like wrestling a ball off Lionel Messi when he has the goal in sight.<\/p>\n

double quotation markI always said I\u2019m Scottish through and through. But we did this DNA test and before 1700 we\u2019re from Sweden!<\/p>\n

Brown builds the book\u2019s central argument on the idea of empathy (and there\u2019s a certain irony in that Blair famously accused Brown of lacking emotional intelligence). \u201cEmpathy is a term that comes from Adam Smith, from The Theory of Moral Sentiments,\u201d he says. \u201cSmith called it sympathy, but now you\u2019d call it empathy, which is to put yourself in other people\u2019s shoes.\u201d Smith recognises that loyalties to family are strongest, but \u201cunlike JD Vance in his spat with the Pope,<\/a> Smith would have said, \u2018It is possible to have loyalties and feel sympathy towards people in difficult situations in any part of the world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He points out of the window towards the church where his father, the Rev John Brown, was minister. There are more churches in Kirkcaldy than you can shake a stick at. \u201cThere was a disruption,\u201d Brown says, \u201cso churches broke away from each other. My father was one of the dissenters.\u201d Gordon and his two brothers, John and Andrew, grew up in the draughty old manse. There was no central heating until they were teenagers. \u201cIt was quite cold.\u201d How cold? \u201cYou got used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

His mother, Jessie, had a huge influence on him, too, he says. \u201cShe always asked whether I really wanted to do the things I was doing. She made you question what you were doing.\u201d The porridge-every-morning Calvinist upbringing was \u201cquite strict\u201d. He pauses. \u201cShe was quite appalled one day. She said, \u2018I\u2019ve heard a terrible story about you. I\u2019ve heard you sometimes swear.\u2019\u201d (The only exclamation I hear him use is a forceful \u201cgee whizz\u201d.)<\/p>\n

When the Beatles came to Kirkcaldy, the Brown boys \u201cdidn\u2019t get to go\u201d. Because the Fab Four encouraged loose morals? \u201cWe were told we were too young. People in my class were going, but I wasn\u2019t.\u201d He laughs deeply. \u201cLuckily, I have met Paul McCartney since.\u201d He tells me the Beatles had links with the town because John Lennon had \u201can aunt or someone\u201d who lived here.<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t get up in the morning wanting to be on the radio or television or in front of a crowd.\u2019 Photograph: Margaret Mitchell\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Kirkcaldy was where Brown\u2019s prodigious intelligence was first recognised. He excelled in everything. Academically, he was fast-tracked to the University of Edinburgh at the age of 16. He was the Kirkcaldy boys\u2019 tennis champion, a sprinter, an excellent rugby flanker. It was while playing rugby that he sustained a detached retina, an injury so serious he spent three months lying in a hospital bed, eyes bandaged, unable to move. He lost the sight in his left eye, and nearly in his right eye, too. The disability stopped him doing the thing he really wanted to do \u2013 sport \u2013 and he was forced to rethink his ambitions. \u201cI think that\u2019s what made me want to do something more active in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On the back seat of the car are the copious notes Brown makes while people talk to him, large letters in black felt tip, stuffed in a transparent folder. Biographers say he was an introverted child. Still now, there\u2019s a voice in his head before he stands to give a speech, saying, \u201cAm I really wanting to do this?\u201d But another says, \u201cYes, you really have to.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t get up in the morning wanting to be on the radio or television or in front of a crowd. You do things out of obligation.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he was young, hierarchy expected deference, he says. The students of his generation protested, pushing \u201cfor greater individual freedom\u201d. Photos of Brown show a serious student with long hair in a severe side-parting (unlike his beer-drinking contemporaries, he is wearing a tie). He admits he may have been more leftwing then than in his New Labour days. \u201cBut what happened in a way was that the balance between individual freedom and social obligation, between self-expression and your sense of being part of a community, got out of sync. So we threw out the baby with the bathwater. We threw out this idea that we\u2019re a part of a society.<\/p>\n

And I think that\u2019s the reason why commercialisation, consumerism, the amassing of wealth, inequality has become so prevalent. Because we\u2019ve lost that sense of social obligation to each other, this sense that we\u2019re part of one community.\u201d<\/p>\n

While we\u2019re on the subject of protest (and empathy), I ask about Labour\u2019s treatment of peaceful Palestine Action protesters<\/a>, thrown into police vans for holding placards in support of activists who raided an Israeli drone manufacturer based in the UK. \u201cI think you\u2019ll find most people in the Labour party did not intend this to be the outcome,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I have always defended the freedom to assemble and protest peacefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

We pass a disused linoleum factory, and he points it out for me, as an important part of the industrial history of the town. \u201cThey lost out to fitted carpets,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

Being with Brown is like being with a particularly feverish member of the Scottish tourist board. Did I know there\u2019s an exhibition of Scottish colourists in Perth (even he \u201chadn\u2019t realised how many there were\u201d)? Did I know the current one-mile world record holder<\/a> is a Scot called Josh Kerr? Did I hear Scottish football fans were feted in Boston during the World Cup because they were so well behaved (though \u201cobviously they drank the place dry\u201d)? Do I know about famous Fife emigres, such as Andrew Carnegie? Don\u2019t get him started on the Scottish Enlightenment philosophers. Did I know that three tenets of the US Declaration of Independence come from Scotland? Did I know Barack Obama has Scottish ancestry?<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s also self-deprecating, saying that when he fought the Scottish Nationalist party in the 2014 independence referendum, \u201cI always had this line: \u2018I\u2019m Scottish through and through.\u2019 But we did this DNA test and before 1700 we\u2019re actually from Sweden!\u201d<\/p>\n

Bearing in mind his ardour for Scotland and the rise of English nationalism, does he now feel that swooping in on the side of no was a mistake? \u201cThat\u2019s not in the book,\u201d he says. Pressed, he recognises that the present status quo is not satisfactory and probably half the country want independence. At the same time, he says, \u201cScotland\u2019s got to find a way of living in cooperation with other countries, and independence would not be the right way forward. We\u2019re geographically, economically, socially, culturally linked to the rest of the United Kingdom, whether it\u2019s Wales, England or parts of Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surely, that \u201cpart\u201d of Ireland is geographically linked with the other part of Ireland, so, by this reasoning should Ireland be united? \u201cYes. Well, of course, in the long term, Ireland will be united.\u201d Wait, what? Brown, who was heavily involved in the peace talks that followed the Good Friday agreement in 1998, has always been pro-union. He says that a united Ireland will be \u201ca long process where people have got to come together and find a way of agreeing. Basically, that is the issue: whether people can actually agree.\u201d<\/p>\n

The climate debate is raging, we are frying in record temperatures, phones are squawking with government wildfire warnings. There\u2019s fierce criticism of Burnham for his support of drilling in the North Sea. I know Brown supports this, too, justifying it on the grounds it creates jobs in Scotland \u2013 but surely, we need to do something now? \u201cThe debate, Charlotte, seems to be divided between those who support North Sea development and those who support renewables. But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Burnham, he argues that the same skills and infrastructure used for the development of the North Sea for oil and gas can also be used for the future development of renewables. \u201cSo the future of the North Sea is not that it dies when oil and gas run out but moves in a transitional way to hydrogen, wind and carbon capture. Thousands of jobs still can be based on the North Sea, but they will gradually move through to being jobs based on renewables.\u201d Many might feel this is quintessential New Labour triangulation that fails to\u00a0recognise the urgency of the moment. A touch of apr\u00e8s moi, le deluge?<\/p>\n

Brown has written a lot about what he got right and what he got wrong in government. (Does this self-reflection help him? \u201cNo.\u201d) \u201cOne of my faults was I wasn\u2019t as good at communicating as I should have been,\u201d he says now. He knows it would be worse in the world of social media, that no politician would \u201csurvive\u201d without cringey TikToks and Reels. Would he have coped? \u201cI don\u2019t know how good I would have been. It depends on your willingness to open yourself up to different things. But Andy would be the first to tell you that it\u2019s not just your ability to communicate; you\u2019ve got to have the right policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unwittingly, he became a TikTok star while in the queue to the Scotland game at the World Cup (he\u2019d promised his younger son they\u2019d go if Scotland qualified). There he was, smiling among the fans in tartan tam\u00a0o\u2019shanters, incongruous in a smart blue shirt.<\/p>\n

Was he the only fan not in a Scotland jersey? \u201cNo, no!\u201d he scoffs. \u201cNot everybody can afford \u00a3100 for a jersey, as I told my son. A hundred pounds! Actually, they were charging \u00a390, I think. I wasn\u2019t in a kilt, either, but I was wearing a blue shirt and Scotland plays in blue.\u201d Does he have a kilt? \u201cNo, no! The last time I wore a kilt, I was eight or 10.\u201d His parents forced him into one for church on Sundays. \u201cI didn\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Football is Brown\u2019s great love, his \u201cbest relaxation\u201d in No 10 and still now it\u2019s how he unwinds \u2013 on the edge of an armchair in his sitting room, shouting and pumping his fist at a screen the size of a wall, the green reflection perhaps visible to passing ships.<\/p>\n

As chancellor, visiting the new Wembley Stadium in London in 2007, ahead of England\u2019s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. Photograph: Chris Young\/PA<\/p>\n

He saw Scotland in the World Cups of 1982 and 1990, too. In 1998, as the newly appointed chancellor after the New Labour landslide of 97, he watched them play Brazil in Paris, standing behind the Duke of Edinburgh, who was furious when the unofficial national anthem, Flower of Scotland, was played, spitting with incredulity, \u201c\u2018What is that?\u2019\u201d Brown says. \u201cHe thought it was going to be God Save the Queen and was very annoyed. It was really funny.\u201d (Later, I ask his adviser if Brown is a republican and she tells me firmly I am not to ask.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book \u2026 \u201d he urges. Yes! The book. To write it he rose at 5am, ascending to this office and bashing at his keyboard for four hours straight. He has breakfast, scrambled egg and tomato, or smoked salmon and toast (you can tell when his wife, Sarah, is not at home because the kitchen looks like something out of The Young Ones), then \u201cgets on\u201d with the day job.<\/p>\n

Brown married late, at 49 \u2013 his single status was once used against him as a candidate for high office \u2013 to Sarah\u2019s 36. Their first child, a daughter called Jennifer, was born prematurely in 2001 and died in Brown\u2019s arms at 10 days old. He has said he didn\u2019t want to go back into politics after her death, that he wanted to \u201cstay away\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first few months, I couldn\u2019t really smile or anything. I couldn\u2019t listen to music. It was a very difficult period. But you do decide that something good has got to come out of a tragedy, and that\u2019s what we \u2013 Sarah in particular \u2013 tried to do.\u201d They founded the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory, to better understand premature births. Sarah also runs the charity Theirworld<\/a>; among other places, they helped schoolgirls in Afghanistan and organised \u201cpop-up\u201d Sure Start centres in Gaza. Brown has said he cannot bear to think of children suffering, that the needless deaths of children all over the world makes him angry.<\/p>\n

In the past, he worried that his two sons, John, 22, and Fraser, 20, found him \u201cold\u201d. That he\u2019d done them a \u201cdisservice\u201d with the age gap. Today he\u2019s feeling spry. At the house, Sarah comes in to say hi with a small dog struggling with excitement in her arms. He\u2019s said that she was a great sounding board on women\u2019s issues and equality. (Does he have a theory of why there still hasn\u2019t been a female leader of Labour? \u201cTiming.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The boys don\u2019t remember much of Downing Street. Brown has joked about how they\u2019d occasionally burst into meetings (memorably, one with the US general David Petraeus and Northern Ireland first minister Ian Paisley, at whom one son shouted, \u201cTeach me how to march!\u201d). All were affected by the pernicious savaging by the Murdoch press, who he says printed \u201ccomplete lies\u201d and used \u201cblack arts\u201d to snoop bank accounts and medical records. \u201cI don\u2019t think people understand just how much damage the Murdoch press did,\u201d Brown says, \u201chow much they tried to control British political life for years. They were operating hand in glove with the Conservative party attempting to control British politics \u2013 for commercial gain, as well as for political influence. They were only stopped by exposure.\u201d Examples he gives include the Remembrance service where he bowed his head in prayer and the Sun claimed he\u2019d fallen asleep.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to understand how they can talk about a free press when they actually wanted a press that dictated events regardless of truth,\u201d he says. In 2024, with new information, Brown made a submission to the Metropolitan police. Have they formally opened an investigation? \u201cI\u2019ll have to come back to you on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown speaks in swathes of sentences with multiple clauses, and reads multiple books at a time. Currently, one on the Cambridge spies, which he thinks should be made into a film \u2013 \u201cIt really makes you very worried about the damage spies can do.\u201d Another, Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope, is a \u201creinterpretation\u201d of the civil rights movement. Another is a history of the 1960s by David Kynaston. Plus he just finished Lyse Doucet\u2019s The Finest Hotel in Kabul. To each review, he brings an unfiltered enthusiasm. What will he take on his summer holidays? \u201cHa! If I could get a summer holiday.\u201d<\/p>\n

He listens to podcasts and participates in philosophical discussion. His jokes are highbrow and niche. There\u2019s one about 1960s Labour party entryism, another about Austrian economists, and one about 1970s rock bands I didn\u2019t understand. I notice he has a slightly seesawing walk as we return from the charity, but remarkable stamina given we haven\u2019t had lunch (he demolished a Tunnock\u2019s teacake, scrunching the foil into his pocket).<\/p>\n

How does he keep going at this pace at 75? \u201cYou\u2019ve got to try harder to stay fit.\u201d How? \u201cLots of walking, a bit of treadmill, a bit of these machines.\u201d Machines? He admits Sarah bought a Pilates reformer years ago which \u201cmaybe\u201d he uses, too. How often? \u201cFour days a week.\u201d Are there any aspects of ageing that he\u2019s found hard? Memory fade, creaky joints? \u201cYou don\u2019t want to go grey,\u201d he says, \u201cand I\u2019m sorry I have. I always had very dark hair. But that\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he smiles, it\u2019s like the sun bursting through cloud, so I ask about his famed temper. He says he doesn\u2019t recognise the characterisation. \u201cLook, we all get angry. We all respond to certain situations in a way that sometimes you would prefer not to. But I don\u2019t see myself as someone who regularly loses their temper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the formidable Brown, once known for his fierce glare, basso profondo and intolerance of the ridiculous, has mellowed? \u201cLook, I\u2019m still working as hard as I did 20 years ago. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve let up.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Future Starts With Us by Gordon Brown is published by Simon & Schuster on 1 September at \u00a325. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Join him in conversation for a special Guardian Live event in London on 10 September, purchase your livestream tickets here<\/a>. He will also be speaking at the University of Glasgow on 2 September, tickets available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a Monday in August and as England burns in dystopian heat, Gordon Brown and I are in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-753383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}