Listen with Gordon.
There has been much mocking of the philosopher’s bourn that is Gordon Brown’s mind, yeah, even a suggestion that he long since lost control of it.
His new found Oprah Winfrey style ‘definitely-not-a-party-political-broadcast-I-haven’t-announced-the-date-yet’ bearing of the soul has been particularly badly received in the blogosphere.
However, I have been reading again some of the transcripts of his recent attempts at the Greek concept of parrhesia, and been impressed with his veracity.
Take his interview with Piers Morgan. He was asked about his proposal to Sarah Brown, or rather his attempt to get himself appointed husband to Sarah Brown.
Did he go down on one knee, humbled, and ask if she would have him? No, he didn’t. He merely informed her that he thought he should be appointed husband ‘as soon as possible’. I find that remarkably revealing – this is not just a man who wishes to tamper with our democracy, this is a man who believes in every area of his life that what he wants should happen as soon as possible, with the least element of choice on the part of those he wishes to inflict himself on.
Again this week, he has been out and about, revealing his true self to millions of readers of Tesco’s free magazine (this is not a party political etc. ad nauseum). He spoke of his Mother, the Nanny figure in all our lives, who tells us what to do, what to think, what to eat, whilst we are too powerless to rebel.
Did he extol the virtues of becoming an adult, reveling in the freedom of personal responsibility? No, he didn’t. He said “Your mother is so central to everything that you are, as well as what you do and how you behave, that it’s very difficult to contemplate life without her.”
This is a man who believes that human beings find it difficult to operate without a guiding figure telling them what to do, how to behave. We shouldn’t be surprised at the rise of the Nanny state.
Can anybody else come up with good examples of Gordon Brown revealing more than we thought in those ‘personal interviews’?
ps. The picture says mantel receiver, not mental receiver!
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1
February 20, 2010 at 09:22 -
Is there a possibility that he somehow courted Sarah. I can’t quite see it myself.
Perhaps his mother did, she’d have known best.
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2
February 20, 2010 at 09:41 -
Hmm. Dour 48-year old batchelor planning to become Prime Minister needs wife ‘as soon as possible’…
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3
February 20, 2010 at 09:58 -
She’s a beard, deffo.
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4
February 20, 2010 at 10:05 -
I wonder what his childhood was really like. Probably not quite abusive, but I’ll bet he was controlled, oppressed and forced to please. The need to be dominant over everyone else surfaces later! It’s why he thinks he knows what’s best for everyone else. Why he has to be right, why he is incapable of a personal apology coming from his mouth. A very sad, flawed man. (There the sympathy ends!) Go now Gordon!
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5
February 20, 2010 at 10:07 -
Parrhesia, “beard” ?? Wikipedia is working overtime today!
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6
February 20, 2010 at 10:35 -
“…bearing of the soul…”
Sounds rather ursine. You meant ‘baring’ surely?
Sorry, my mistake -Britain’s soul is getting a thorough seeing-to by a clumsy, lumbering Brown. As you were.
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7
February 20, 2010 at 11:12 -
Yeah.
When he said he didn’t know of the Ecclestone donation he revealed himself to be a venal liar.
When he said we were best placed to enter the resession he revealed himself to be a shameless liar.
When he said he had not intended to call an election he revealed himself to be an incompetent liar.
When he said he had ended boom and bust he revealed himself to be a farcical liar.
When he said he was going to end the culture of spin he revealed himself ot be a addicted liar.
When all is said and done though, anybody that is willing to call Piers Morgan a ‘friend’ is surely beyond hope?
The thing with Gordon is, he is passionately convinced by his own background story. So certain he is fighting the good fight, if everyone would just see all the good he is doing.
He is so very convinced he is an honest and decent man he is willing to lie and smear to prove it. -
8
February 20, 2010 at 11:16 -
It was the pronouns that struck me in the Morgan interview. Here was a man who was apparently speaking the deepest feelings of his soul and he repeatedly began statements with “You feel” and “You think”. From which I can only conclude that he can speak with absolute confidence on behalf of EVERY ONE of us. It’s more sinister than the collusive “we”.
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9
February 20, 2010 at 12:03 -
PT Barnum said: “From which I can only conclude that he can speak with absolute confidence on behalf of EVERY ONE of us. It’s more sinister than the collusive “we”.”
Brown has made a habit of this when it comes to major accidents, sporting events, international terrorism, climate change, bad weather, David Cameron getting good press, his tea being cold and the like. He will frequently begin his pronouncements with ‘I think I speak for the nation that…’ or something similar.
He does not speak for me.
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10
February 20, 2010 at 12:12 -
A compulsive liar with no talent for it — I know this feeling from my efforts to play blues guitar. I have limitless ambitions to play better than Clapton, but absolutely NO talent for it at all. Took me years to accept.
Also… those that know better than everyone else — aren’t they the ones who occupy the innermost circle of Hell? Gordon’s not far behind Tony.
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11
February 20, 2010 at 14:32 -
Lets be kind to the man. He is as crazy as a bag of snakes, and should have been put down at birth. The world, and the UK for sure, would be a safer and better place without him; he is loathsome, and not entirely human.
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12
February 21, 2010 at 00:54 -
Dante places, at the deepest level of Hell, the 9th circle, people who betray those to whom they owe care, loyalty or obedience.
Brown would fit in well in the 6th circle (wrath and sullenness) or the 8th (fraud).
Blair? Well, the 4th (avarice) or the 7th (violence) or the 8th (heresy) would all provide him with like-minded people.
But the 9th circle seems about right.
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