Gordon Brown describes struggle to win over voters in 'touchy-feely era'

'To my mind, what mattered was not what I said about myself, but simply what our government could do for our country,' writes former PM in new book

Former Prime Minster Gordon Brown (PA)

Gordon Brown has described his struggles to communicate with voters in the era of “touchy feely” politics and social media.

In his memoir, published a decade after he became prime minister, Mr Brown acknowledges he had not been “an ideal fit” in an age which put personal politics to the fore.

However, he says that while he may have been seen by some as being remote or aloof, what mattered to him throughout was “what our government could do for our country”.

In a first extract from My Life, Our Times, Mr Brown admits his “biggest regret” as prime minister was his failure to convince voters to back his vision of progressive politics following the global financial crash of 2008.

Throughout his time in No 10, Mr Brown was criticised for being dour and awkward in public – factors widely seen to have contributed to his general election defeat in 2010.

In the book, he describes growing up in an era where “reticence was the rule” and politicians were considered “self-absorbed and even out of touch” if they were “constantly self-referential in public”.

It left him, he says, uncomfortable about being “conspicuously demonstrative” – one of the reasons why it took him so long to write his memoir.

“During my time as an MP I never mastered the capacity to leave a good impression or sculpt my public image in 140 characters,” he writes.

“In a far more touchy-feely era, our leaders speak of public issues in intensely personal ways and assume they can win votes simply by telling their electors that they ‘feel their pain’.

“I fully understand that in a media-conscious age every politician has to lighten up to get a message across and I accept that, in the second decade of the 21st century, a sense of personal reserve can limit the appeal and rapport of a leader.

“I am not, I hope, remote, offhand or uncommunicative. But if I wasn’t an ideal fit for an age when the personal side of politics had come to the fore, I hope people will come to understand this was not an aloofness or detachment or, I hope, insensitivity or a lack of emotional intelligence on my part.

“Really, to my mind, what mattered was not what I said about myself, but simply what our government could do for our country.”

While he helped to secure a worldwide recovery plan following the crash, Mr Brown says his inability to communicate more effectively meant he was unable to persuade voters to back his vision of the way forward.

“My own biggest regret was that in the greatest peacetime challenge – a catastrophic global recession – I could not persuade the British people that the progressive policies I pushed for, nationally and internationally, were the right and fairest way to respond,” he writes.

“We won the battle – to escape recession. But we lost the war – to build something better. I fell short in communicating my ideas. I failed to rally the nation around the necessary fiscal stimulus and my plans for radical change.”

Mr Brown has also described the dramatic moment he feared he would lose his sight completely.

He had been left blind in one eye and suffered a loss of vision in the other after a blow to the head in a teenage rugby match. In Number 10, four decades on, he suffered a sudden deterioration in his good eye.

“When I woke up in Downing Street one Monday in September (2009), I knew something was very wrong. My vision was foggy,” he writes.

“That morning, I was to visit the City Academy in Hackney to speak about our education reform agenda.

“I kept the engagement, doing all I could to disguise the fact that I could see very little – discarding the prepared notes and speaking extemporaneously.”

As soon as the event was over, Mr Brown was driven to the consulting room of a prominent surgeon at the Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.

“To my shock, in examining my right eye, he discovered that the retina was torn in two places and said that an operation was urgently needed. He generously agreed to operate that Sunday,” he writes.

On his way out, Mr Brown asked if an old friend, Hector Chawla, who had treated him in the past, could be invited to give a second opinion.

He saw him the day the operation was due to take place.

“I was already prepared for surgery when he examined me and said he was convinced that the tears had not happened in the past few days. They were not new but longstanding,” Mr Brown writes.

“His advice was blunt. There was no point in operating unless the sight deteriorated further. Laser surgery in my case was more of a risk than it was worth.”

Mr Brown – who did not even let on to Cabinet colleagues what he was going through – says he feels “lucky beyond words” that the retina has continued to hold.

“Even if I felt fate had dealt me a hand I would not have chosen, my time in and out of hospital – and the fight for my eyesight -gave me a perspective that I still feel helps me to be more understanding of difficulties facing others in a far worse position than me,” he writes.

PA