THE TELEGRAPH: As Gordon Brown clings on to power, his biographer Anthony Seldon delivers his damning verdict on our flawed prime minister
'I did not foresee it,” Gordon Brown was heard to say on May 7, 2010. But then the Gordon Brown story is a Shakespearean tragedy of King Lear proportions. Like King Lear, he lashes out in all directions, now berating, now making sycophantic overtures, a desperate figure clinging by his nails to the vestiges of power. Like Lear, he demeans himself, and fails to see the truth, a truth evident to those all around him.
As John Major said, his remaining in office is beginning to look undignified: quite fairly, the former Tory prime minister observed that his own loss in 1997 was nothing like as severe as Brown’s. He should really, added Major, have taken himself off to watch the cricket by now.
True, Labour avoided falling into third place, and with it the ignominy of achieving its poorest result since 1918. But achieving just 29 per cent of the vote, and losing 90 seats, was still its worst result since 1983, when the party was led by Michael Foot. And however the next few days play out – whether Nick Clegg strikes a deal with David Cameron or even if he opens talks with senior figures in Labour – one thing is certain: Brown is a dead man walking. >>> Anthony Seldon | Friday, May 07, 2010
