Gordon Brown: from 'toxic sociopath' to 'man of substance'

Gordon Brown's resignation from Parliament has prompted a more sympathetic assessment of his career and personality than he received during his time as prime minister.

Brown formally announced his plans to stand down at the next election at his Kirkcaldy constituency last night. Standing with his wife Sarah and two sons John and Fraser, he spoke about losing his first child Jennifer shortly after her birth and revealed that problems with his eyesight in Downing Street were more serious than he had previously admitted. Newspapers appear to have softened towards Brown over the last four years, with some political commentators calling for a reassessment of his career. Here is what they were saying then and now:

Daily Mail

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The Daily Mail's Richard Littlejohn was never much of a fan of Brown. In 2010, he described the PM as a "toxic confection of narcissism, naked ambition, spite, bullying, bombast and bubbling resentment, with a self-pitying temper and a yellow streak the width of the Firth of Forth". Having also labelled him a "sociopath" who "hates everybody", Littlejohn described his resignation after the 2010 election, which was seen by some as an attempt to scupper talks between the Lib Dems and Tories, as "beyond outrageous" and "a scandalous piece of party political self-interest".

But today, the Mail's Quentin Letts says Brown has "towering strengths to match his tragic flaws". Brown "certainly deserves much of the credit" for saving the United Kingdom from breaking up earlier this year, says Letts. "There was something in this dark-fringed Scot that was strangely compelling, something that should make us stay our hand before we dismiss him," says Letts. "He was as complex, deep, unhappy as a Rachmaninov symphony. Not a great prime minister, no. But a fascinating study of a man."

Daily Telegraph

Brown's "world crumbled around him" when he stood down in May 2010, the Daily Telegraph's Gordon Rayner said at the time. "Just 24 hours after he had stood defiantly outside Number 10 to announce a possible Labour-Lib Dem coalition, his own MPs had deserted him in droves, leaving Mr Brown utterly defeated."

Today, Tim Stanley says Brown deserves a "reassessment". Brown outranked his successors in his political ability to "appeal to the gut". His legacy inspires debate, which Stanley says is usually a "sign of substance". By contrast, Stanley suggests David Cameron might disappear from public life altogether when he quits politics. "Ed Miliband, one suspects, will have a second career as a comedy act on a cruise ship. Clegg might present the weather. None of these men who are currently in power casts nearly as much of an impression as Gordon Brown does when he is out of it. He is a giant. Many who followed were pygmies."

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee was urging Gordon Brown to step down in May 2009. She blamed him personally for making the "rich richer and the poor poorer" and said he was found wanting in almost every attribute a leader needs. "Squalid dealings by his poisonous inner circle were exposed to the light of day; yet at the same time he lacks a leader's necessary political cunning," she said. "Many hoped that the end of the rivalry with Blair would see Brown cast off his myrmidons. He didn't. In the tussle between his better and his worse selves, too often the lesser man won."

Writing in The Guardian today, Jonathan Freedland describes Brown as a "big beast, a towering figure in Labour and British politics for almost two decades". He can legitimately claim to have saved the pound, the global financial system and the union, says Freedland. "Blair was indeed a winner, the charismatic face of New Labour, victorious in three elections. But his epitaph will forever be Iraq. The great twist in their decades-long rivalry is that it might eventually be Brown's record that looks the stronger."

The Times

Matthew Parris was unimpressed with Brown after his first party conference as PM in 2007. "Gordon Brown's new era was stillborn in Bournemouth last week," he wrote. "Pull back the curtains guarding this latterday Wizard of Oz and you will find a crafty but unimaginative 20th-century Labour politician: a bully with a big ego, a yellow streak and nothing to say. Whenever the election comes, the message to Conservative representatives gathering now in Blackpool was whispered last week on every sea-breeze in Bournemouth: this man, this Government, is so beatable."

Today's Times leader says history could be gentler in its final judgment on Mr Brown. The newspaper blames him for the collapse of the credit system, but says he also galvanised the sluggish international response to the financial crisis at the 2009 G20 summit. "The test will be whether he uses the freedom and authority of an elder statesman wisely, as Sir John Major has done, or squanders them, like Tony Blair. Retirement may suit Mr Brown better than the highest office ever did."