The British prime minister remains a shy man, uncomfortable with strangers, writes MARK HENNESSY
TELEVISION PRESENTER Piers Morgan has been a not infrequent weekend visitor to Chequers, the country seat of British prime ministers, where the current occupant, Gordon Brown, has greeted him at the door.
Morgan’s Life Stories interview on ITV on Sunday with Mr Brown seemed to be part of such a weekend: an old pals’ act with soft questions, with an audience pre-programmed to applaud at all the right moments.
The programme was a risk for Mr Brown. He is not, and never has been, comfortable talking about his private life, once saying that he would not use his children as “political props, because they are people”.
On Sunday that changed. He talked at length about the loss of his daughter Jennifer in 2002 after just a week and a half of life, and his son Fraser’s battle with cystic fibrosis. Only a stone could not feel sympathy.
Yet however human and tragic the story, and it is both, it will be judged by its effect on voters, because it was done for electoral reasons pure and simple – a desperate effort by Mr Brown to persuade people to like him, if not love him.
So far, London’s media commentariat is divided. Fraser Nelson at the Tory-supporting Spectator said Mr Brown had turned on the charm and that the interview was “as good as it gets for him”.
However, Quentin Letts in the equally Tory-supporting Daily Mail said he had used his family as “a cheap political stunt” and had “shattered any right to be regarded as a man of self-respect”.
Acknowledging the interview’s motivation, LabourList, a website supportive of the party, said that whether people saw it as “a calculated election stunt, or an honest attempt to open up to the public, it was good – and it was healthy – to see the real, human side to ”.
The Conservatives are unhappy, but careful not to be too critical of a man who was speaking about personal tragedy, preferring instead to attack’s Morgan’s “groupie-style” questioning.
However, the reality is that Tory leader David Cameron already trod on the path now travelled by Mr Brown when he spoke about the loss of his six-year-old son Ivan last year.
Indeed, he did it again on Saturday for Scottish TV viewers, while other elements of his party were simultaneously complaining to ITV about the piece of “soft poofery” granted to Mr Brown so close to the election.
Now, however, some of the PM’s closest allies want him to do more of it, putting himself into real contact with the public, rather than the stage-managed routines preferred by politicians.
Such a course is heavy with risk for anyone, but for Mr Brown, given his natural discomfort in public, most of all. At best, he did well on Sunday. At worst, he got a score draw. The risks will multiply if he does it again, particularly on a platform where real questions might be asked.