Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety six, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a politician. The son of a Scottish Calvinist minister, he appears to many to survive on a mixture of intellectual strength and natural self discipline.

Presenter0:39

He went to Edinburgh University at the age of sixteen, its youngest student for fifty years, and entered Parliament in nineteen eighty three.

Presenter0:46

Rapidly promoted, he moved to the front benches within four years and was seen as a potential leader of his party. But when the leadership election came, he stood aside. He's never held high office and he's never married, but has voiced ambitions to do both. He's the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. Gordon, holding high office is presumably top of your agenda as we enter the last twelve possible months of this Government's life.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP1:12

I think I'd come back from a desert island for an election and for government. We've waited a long time. And I think we work as a team. We've been working as a team for many years to get this result. We've had to make huge changes. I was one of the people advocating big changes.

Presenter1:27

You say to get this result, does that mean you think it's only a matter of time? Now let have the election and you're in?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP1:27

You say tickets.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP1:32

Well, perhaps I should say the result we want. I take nothing for granted, and I don't think anybody's complacent. But I think there is a tide in politics, and I think people see the need for change. And I would like to be part of that change.

Presenter1:42

But you might have said that four years ago, of course. In fact, you were saying that four years ago, and it didn't happen.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP1:44

In fact you

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP1:46

I think more so now. People's thoughts, you know, now are about uh the future. And I think uh new ideas and a new politics uh

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP1:55

is what I think people want.

Presenter1:57

But it's not over till the fat lady sings.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP1:59

It certainly isn't, and uh there is no complacency, as I've said.

Presenter2:02

Did you consider, though, going back to'ninety two', when, as I say, people thought it was nearly in the bag until a few days before? You'd have been forty one years old at the time, so there was still time then to turn away, as it were, and begin a different career, rather than slogging on in opposition yet again. Did you consider doing that?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP2:19

Not at all. I I think a choice uh I made a few years before uh to go into Parliament is a choice I want to stand by. I think it's important that when you make a commitment to public service you see it through.

Presenter2:30

So it was a sort of Calvinist sense of duty, was it?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP2:33

It's often thought that politicians are simply out for themselves, and certainly we do a lot to give people that impression. But I think at best people see public service as something that is about the country and about the future of the country, and I passionately believe in things that I want to see achieved.

Presenter2:48

Will the sense of duty and Calvinist self-discipline and so on do the trick if the unthinkable, as far as you're concerned, happens and you lose the next election?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP2:58

Well, we'll keep going, I think, but uh I don't uh see that happening. But of course, as I said, I'm not complacent.

Presenter3:04

Tell me about your first record.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP3:06

But the first record goes back uh

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP3:08

Very far to my youth. And of course, as you rightly said, I was brought up as the son of a Church of Scotland minister. I don't think it was a Calvinist background as such. It was very much a social Christianity. But of course, it revolved around Christmas and Easter and around hymns in churches. And that's why I've chosen a hymn, See Amid the Winter Snow. But I've chosen it sung by Jessie Norman, who I think is the most brilliant singer I've heard. She used to come to the Edinburgh Festival and I used to hear her. See Amid the Winter Snow, I think, brings out the full range of a voice. So it's a Christian song, but it's sung by, I think, the world's best woman singer.

Speaker 43:52

Uh

Speaker 43:56

Teach what did us early trial, Why be so weak and wild, Till it astern.

Speaker 44:14

Let us return it yea.

Speaker 44:28

But happy to see you together.

Presenter4:48

Jessie Norman singing Sea Amid the Winter Snow with the New York Choral Society Describe to me, Gordon Brown, if you will, you as a wee boy living by the sea.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP4:58

Sport, I think. Football, rugby, tennis, running. I think I was a sports enthusiast right from the beginning, and I think I remember running all the time. That's what I remember about my background. And of course, I loved playing rugby. I played a lot of tennis and played for my local team against all the clubs in Scotland. And I ran in the Scottish Nationals School Boy Championships as a sprinter. So that was my growing up. And you had two friends. Not politics, they're sport.

Presenter5:26

And you had two brothers.

Presenter5:29

Two brothers?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP5:30

Two brothers, one older, one younger. My older brother was a tremendous dynamo. He he started a local newspaper at the age of twelve, and I was a sports editor. We really were sort of part of a local community, and I think the church at the centre of it, with my father being a minister, and I remember also beggars coming to the door all the time. And I think perhaps on one of the first occasions that my mother and father left me at home on my own, I think perhaps with my older brother who had disappeared, some chap came to the door begging for money. And I invited him in, and as I thought I should, I offered him food and

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP6:03

I asked him to help himself in the kitchen, and then my parents return returned home and they found it was the the town's leading housebreaker whom I had invited in. But that was applying the principles a bit too far, I think.

Presenter6:13

But but it was a quite a strict upbringing, I've read. I mean, w what what sort of things would your parents insist upon that perhaps other families didn't?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP6:21

Well, we did go to uh church uh every Sunday, twice a Sunday. We we did uh involve ourselves in all the religious uh events of the time. But uh I don't regard it as strict. I regard my father and mother, who who who are still alive, as as as very fair.

Presenter6:34

Were you a very serious minded little chap?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP6:37

Well, I went to school at four and to secondary school at ten, and I I was in an experiment at school where they where they pushed people um a year, in fact uh two years ahead in my case. So I ended up doing my O grades at fourteen and my higher the sort of Scottish A levels at fifteen and that's why, as you rightly said, I ended up at university at sixteen. So I was pushed a bit on.

Presenter6:56

But I asked you about whether you were serious minded or not, because you do have a sort of gloomy image, I suppose. People talk about being you being the the the John Knox of the economic crisis, and yet you're not that in person. You you there's a sort of contradiction there, isn't there?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP7:10

I suppose I'm been brought up to think that economics are serious questions, and although you can be funny in all sorts of other areas, it's important that people understand you're serious about their money and about the way you run the economy. And if I give that impression, I'm sorry about it, but it it's one of these things that uh people say about you you don't believe about yourself, but you don't seem to be able to do a great deal about it.

Presenter7:29

But what would your brothers I wonder if if asked, what sort of adjectives would they supply to describe you?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP7:35

I think they would see me as uh a person who told jokes all the time. We did lots of things together. We go on holiday, play golf, play play tennis together, and I I think that's more what they would say about me than about sort of serious political statements.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP7:48

I hope.

Presenter7:49

Record number two.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP7:50

My second choice is a classical piece which I think is absolutely wonderful. I stay in a village outside Edinburgh and look over both the Forth Bridge and the Sea. And this Bach suite number three in D gives all the sense of freedom that looking out on the sea and the mountains on another side, the hills on another side, actually gives you. And when I came to London and went to one or two concerts when I first became an MP, Bach I really did think was superb.

Presenter9:21

Part of Bach's suite No. 3 in D Major, played by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner.

Presenter9:27

You'd have been, what, twelve or thirteen when Harold Wilson came to power. Were were you aware then, even, of that end to a lengthy period of Tory government?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP9:36

I remember not only when Harold Wilson became leader of the Labour Party after Hugh Gateskill sadly died, and writing sort of an article in my school magazine about it, which perhaps doesn't pay rereading, but I was up in Perthshire on holiday with my parents. My father comes from a sort of farming background, and we were up there when the by-election that brought Sir Alec Douglas Hume back into Westminster as the House of Commons as both Prime Minister and the member for Perth. And I sort of followed that campaign and I was fascinated by it. The two things that really did strike me was, first of all, we went round the villages to have a look at what he was saying, and he gave the same speech everywhere, which I now understand, but didn't quite understand then. And then Sir Alec was asked whether he would live in the constituency. And I think it's almost unthinkable for an MP not to live in his constituency now. And he said, no, no, he couldn't, because he had quite enough houses already.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP10:27

That actually went down quite well in Persia.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP10:30

So it was interesting. It was interesting.

Presenter10:32

Yeah.

Presenter10:34

Really? I mean, you you feel that what what what age would you have been when you I mean that would be

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP10:38

Twelve, thirteen I I was I was very interested in what was happening and uh I I offered to support the Labour candidate but he didn't actually think he needed my help.

Presenter10:47

Um so you went off to Edinburgh University, as we say, and in fact got a got a first in history aged aged nineteen?

Presenter10:53

But your university career was dominated um from an early stage, wasn't it, by by physical injury. You damaged one of your eyes playing rugby. What happened?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP11:00

Well, I ended my school days playing rugby against the former pupils and uh and then I went off to to university and something had gone wrong with my eye but I'd been concussed in that match and uh it later turned out that uh as I arrived at university the first thing I did was see a surgeon who told me uh I had got one of these sports injuries, uh a retinal detachment and uh then I missed uh part of the first year, part of the second year, part of the third year because I had a succession of um of eye operations.

Presenter11:25

You also have to lie down and keep very still with this thing.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP11:27

Well, at that time, before all the great scientific advances that that really did help me and sorted things out, you had to lie flat for weeks, blinded, so that the retina could set in place. And so I spent very frustrating sixteenth year, seventeenth year and eighteenth year, having all these operations and long periods of recovery so that so that you didn't get your eye hurt.

Presenter11:51

But it didn't settle back into place.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP11:52

No, one of them didn't.

Presenter11:54

Oh, both were out.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP11:55

Yes, and uh the interesting thing was that it was the great sort of technological advances, laser treatment, silicon bands and so on that that sorted it out. And so I got I got off really, but uh it was a frustrating time being a teenager. I think the worst thing was that I couldn't play rugby or football again. I'm now able to play tennis, so that's uh so that's good.

Presenter12:14

But you've effectively only got one eye, have you?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP12:16

Uh I've got the site and only one art, I guess.

Presenter12:18

And and what what does that mean?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP12:20

Uh n none, not a great deal of difference at all. Um I think people might be suspicious of my driving, but apart from that, it doesn't make any difference at all. I wonder if it can

Presenter12:27

I wonder if it contributes to the to the gloomy image, as it were. Maybe you don't smile as much because we don't come into focus quite as early.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP12:29

Well maybe you don't

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP12:32

No, it actually doesn't make any difference. And I I feel very lucky actually because it could have gone very badly wrong. And of course you think that that's the case when you when you get this diagnosed first of all.

Presenter12:43

Record number three.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP12:44

You can't really think about growing up in the sixties without thinking about the Beatles. And uh Hey Jude, I remember from from being in hospital, and uh it's both sad to start with but actually very positive by the time it it ends, and it's one of the great Beatles songs.

Speaker 413:00

Well, you know that it's a fool who plays it cold by making this world a little golder.

Speaker 413:14

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

Presenter13:23

Hey June

Presenter13:25

The Beatles and Hey Jude.

Presenter13:27

Ten years, Gordon Brown, then followed between University and Westminster, and you were a lecturer and a very active in in politics. How much tension was there between the two in your mind? Were you determined from then on to go into politics mainstream, or or might you have been a writer?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP13:44

I did write a bit and I I wrote a few uh books which which I enjoy doing and I really enjoyed lecturing. It's a great thing. I used to marvel when I started off going to university lectures at lecturers who who spoke without notes for an hour and I thought that was a marvellous achievement. My father had given his sermons without notes as well and I didn't think I could ever do it and of course you get so blase by the time you finish that that that's exactly what you are doing.

Presenter14:08

Do you give speeches now without notes?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP14:10

I I tend not to use notes in most of the speeches I give, but I hope it doesn't show too much.

Presenter14:16

But but w was politics always the aim?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP14:18

I was a candidate from the age of twenty-five. I'd been rector of Edinburgh University as well. I'd been chosen by the students to chair the university governing body, so I got into politics that way, and I ended up at the age of twenty-one making all the decisions about millions of pounds being spent, High Court judges and professors around me. So I was really given a baptism of fire, and that drew me further into becoming a Labour candidate, which I was asked to do in the constituency, in really the area where my father's family comes from, which is Fife and Dunferman East.

Presenter14:50

So eventually, that was 1983, you got in, MP for Dunfermline East. You seemed to be part of what one might call a a Scottish mafia in the nicest sense of the term, which was to take over the Labour Party from a kind of Welsh mafia, you know, from Michael Foote and Neil Kinnock and so on. Suddenly there was John Smith, Tony Blair, Yu, Donald Dewar, Derry Irving. Did you all know each other?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP15:12

Yeah.

Presenter15:12

Yeah.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP15:13

Yes, we we did all know each other, but uh I think uh conspiracy theories are not uh are not very strong here. We're part of a team, uh but not exclusively Scottish. Um Tony Blair was part of it because I came into Parliament with uh Tony. We shared an office. We travelled around

Presenter15:26

How how close were you during the eighties?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP15:28

They're very close and still are.

Presenter15:29

Did you always sense a certain rivalry between you and Tony? Because you you know, you you were contemporaries, you'd come in at the same time, you were jockeying for position.

Presenter15:38

Underneath it all was there a sense of I wonder if he's going to do better than I do.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP15:42

No, not really. And that's th that's both the amazing thing about the situation and about Tony. We we really developed together. We we had this office in the House of Commons which we shared, which didn't even have a window. It was the most amazing uh place and uh you barely get an office and when you get one it's like a a small box. And so a lot of our ideas were formulated in that small office.

Presenter16:02

You you you used to write speeches for him in the small box, didn't you?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP16:02

Yeah, it's just

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP16:05

No, we wrote speeches together. I mean, uh some of our our s our speeches were were joint efforts, but uh all Tony's great speeches are his own.

Presenter16:12

But all young politicians hope eventually to be Prime Minister, you know, hope to rise certainly to lead their party and ultimately to be Prime Minister. And your political credentials were impeccable, you were a fast tracker, you were used to winning. You must have, in your innermost, have contemplated inheriting the mantle of the Labour Party at some point.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP16:33

Well, I th I think that was always a a possibility, but when the time came and uh and John sadly died, it it it seemed the right thing that Tony should should be the leader and uh

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP16:41

It would have been inconceivable that Tony and I would have stood against each other, and we didn't, and it was the right thing that he took the job.

Presenter16:47

I want to ask you a bit more about that in a minute, but uh I suppose th the point one could make there is, of course, you you might still inherit it.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP16:54

Well Jim Callaghan, I I don't suppose he minds me saying it uh wrote me a letter after that and said uh that he thought it was a good thing that that I did standing down so that there was no contest and he of course he was absolutely right that there shouldn't be a contest and he said well of course he had become leader at I think in his mid sixties and and of course politics changes, it does. You just got to wait and see. I feel privileged to be part of a team.

Presenter17:17

Okay, next record, number four.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP17:19

Well, I've actually chosen uh the Gallic uh rendition of the twenty-third Psalm.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP17:24

Partly because of what I've been saying about my upbringing and it certainly reminds me of that, and partly also because it was sung so beautifully at John Smith's funeral. And I think the loss that people felt right across the country was of a friend, someone uh whom they had begun to know and understand. And I think this uh

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP17:45

The beauty of this song encapsulated

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP17:48

Not just that we were mourning the loss of someone, but we were celebrating a life.

Speaker 417:56

Mamochabe amen J.

Speaker 418:22

Tri Himanam, Tri Him, Ocean Skyland.

Speaker 418:38

Her Schlier fielding her skull

Presenter18:49

The twenty third Psalm, Gallic tune, and Gallic words sung by Kenner Campbell at John Smith's funeral.

Presenter18:56

It was the right decision, then, for you and Tony Blair not to oppose each other, but how did you arrive at the decision as to which of you should step aside?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP19:05

Well, I think that that Tony had presented his case about the change that was necessary in a way that was very attractive to the public, that Tony has got tremendous charisma and was very successful in presenting his Home Office brief and had clearly a set of ideas that we both shared that he could communicate very well.

Presenter19:25

He was the more marketable commodity as well.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP19:27

No, not at all. He was the man with ideas and vision.

Presenter19:31

But you had the same ideas which you'd formed together as you described.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP19:31

And an ability to present them, but he also, I think, had a unique and has a unique ability to communicate with the public.

Presenter19:40

What it seems to me you're saying is that the decision was made on the basis of of style rather than substance, because the substance was the same.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP19:47

No, I wouldn't say that because uh the ability to communicate with the public and to uh take these tough decisions about uh clause four and so on, what we've now seen in Tony Blair, a man of real steel and resolution and determination, is what I appreciate appreciated were the qualities that he that he did have. Now

Presenter20:02

Qualities that you don't have.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP20:03

Uh no, I don't say I don't have them, but uh but Tony has them in tremendous abundance. He he'll make a great Prime Minister.

Presenter20:09

How large was the factor that he is a family man and that the electorate on the whole might find it more appealing than the idea of a bachelor prime minister?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP20:18

Well I don't know. That that that would have been something for the party to decide. I mean I'm I'm uh uh not married. It just hasn't uh happened. Uh I hope it uh it does and it it may uh yet and probably will do. But uh uh I think once you get into Parliament, if you're not married by the time you get there uh you're in a situation where you're living in two places really at once in London and in your constituency in Scotland and things become more difficult. You don't hear much about MPs getting married. You hear a lot about them getting divorced.

Presenter20:44

But was that a factor in the decision?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP20:46

I don't think so now.

Presenter20:53

Not at all, never mentioned.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP20:54

No, it wasn't mentioned, no.

Presenter20:56

It leaves you, of course, in a strong position as Shadow John.

Presenter21:01

Perhaps do what you like, as Tony Blair owes you, no matter how much it is.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP21:04

No, not at all. I don't I wouldn't look at it that way at all. He makes his decisions and I take the i instructions if uh if that's how it's got to go.

Presenter21:11

But it's much more of a partnership than that, isn't it? An unusual position. You've got a deal, basically, and no one would blame you if you.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP21:17

No, I don't I wouldn't consider it a deal. We've got a strong friendship. It's a friendship that's survived thick and thin. There's been obviously lots of occasions when we've had to make difficult decisions, but it's a friendship that's survived and I hope will be of use to the country.

Presenter21:32

More music.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP21:34

Well this is a Scottish song.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP21:37

Runrig's rendition of Loch Lomond. And the reason I've chosen it is I would want, if I was on a desert island, to have some Scottish music because of my background, but I don't want Scotland to be presented as sometimes it is as simply a nation living in the past. So I've chosen one that actually is about the real Scotland as I see it, what people in Scotland really think that they want and we want to be a modern country with a vibrant dynamic economy and culture. And Runrig is pop, rock, whatever you call it, but singing a traditional Scottish song.

Speaker 422:14

Where the sun shines on loft load

Speaker 422:21

Were they in my tomb?

Speaker 422:25

Spend many days

Speaker 422:29

On the banks of love'tis glad we parted in yon shady gland

Speaker 422:45

On the steep side heats of Ben Lamont

Speaker 422:51

Bitter heart No snow second spray

Speaker 422:59

Design we must be while we're parting a ship.

Presenter23:09

Runrig and Loch Lomond. Can we talk about a stakeholder society for a moment, Gordon Brown? Is it simply a slogan or is it a policy?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP23:18

It's a policy and it's a theme that matters. Because if people don't feel they have a stake in society, if you've got 30% youth unemployment in some of our inner cities, then you will have problems. And I think it's very important that we expect, in return for the opportunities that we create, responsibilities taken in turn by young people. And that's why having a stake carries not just opportunities, but carries responsibility.

Presenter23:39

But when you put it like that, it does sound like a slogan because it's applying to everything across the board. Now, we see Tony Blair in John Lewis's department store nodding approval at him because he says, This is how you should run a company. You should share allow your employees to share in its profits and so on. Now is that what you're saying, that companies should in an ideal world all be run like Marks and Spencer or John Lewis?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP24:02

Well, I define a stakeholder society and economy as opportunities for people to work. I think that's important and I've said that. Opportunities for people to invest and to save in the future and opportunities for people to share in the success of the firms.

Presenter24:15

But none of those things, you see, sound particularly different f from what the Tories tell us.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP24:21

That's the great problem with new label.

Presenter24:21

That's the great problem with New Labour, isn't it?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP24:23

No, I think they are different because the dividing line is not just that I believe passionately that equality of opportunity for all is the key not just to a strong society, but is also it is the key to a thriving economy.

Presenter24:38

But nevertheless, as we all know, ultimately it's economic policy and pounds in your pocket that win elections. And you have not yet convinced this country, have you, that you are not a party of high taxation? There was a poll only the other day saying that fifty three percent of people still believe that the Labour Government would end up putting up taxes in the long run.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP24:57

Well, I don't think that is the general view of the population. And I think once people understand that I am building my tax policy from first principles and that there is no desire on my part to raise people's taxes for the sake of it, then I think they do understand that labor is different both from labor of the past and from a conservative government that's imposed very high taxes.

Presenter25:16

But you consistently refuse to put the flesh on the bones of those policies because that's what happened last time, isn't it? And in the end Labour didn't win because people felt they were going to be more highly taxed.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP25:26

No. What I've done is said here are the things that I can tell you. Other things we've got to look at the state of the economy and then report to you at the time of the election. You can't announce tax policies two or three years before you know what the state of the economy is going to be.

Presenter25:41

Record number six.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP25:43

Well record number six is Cry Freedom, partly because of a huge interest I've had over a long period of years in films. I'm particularly interested in the British film industry and what we can do about it. And therefore Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom is one film that I do really admire. And I've chosen Cry Freedom also because I think it's some of these great international causes dealing with the problems of apartheid that really have inspired a generation of young people over 30 or 40 years. And I think we've also seen in South Africa a lack of bitterness given all the changes that have been brought about. And Cry Freedom represents that as well.

Speaker 426:29

Sophia

Speaker 426:40

Katinga, Busaka, Bazeru, Harare The children sing about the great ones who cried freedom for South Africa.

Presenter26:52

George Fenton and Jonas Guangua and Cry Freedom.

Presenter26:56

You're always asked, Gordon Brown, in interviews I've read, about women and marriage. Does that irritate you?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP27:02

Not at all. It uh it's a question that uh I expect and uh it's a question that I think I've already answered during the course of this interview that uh that uh it it just hasn't happened. It's it's one of the things that uh

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP27:14

I suppose I'm surprised it hasn't happened, but uh it hasn't.

Presenter27:17

It it is interesting, though, isn't it, that it would probably be less of an issue for you if you'd been married three times. People don't remark on that, but they do rema do remark on non-marriage.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP27:28

I think that's true and uh it certainly appears in all the uh profiles. Uh I've got um s some very good friends obviously and um it it just hasn't happened. It's one of the things that um may yet happen.

Presenter27:39

But d do you understand people's curiosity? It is something that that middle aged men and women have to put up with. People want to know whether you're gay or whether there's some flaw in your personality that you haven't made a relationship.

Presenter27:53

You may feel look, I I don't have to answer these questions, but do you perhaps accept that as a public person it's a price you have to pay?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP28:01

Well, I don't mind answering the questions. It's something that comes up. And certainly I think people have a right to know what their politicians do and what their arrangements are. There is a fascination. I'm not surprised at that.

Presenter28:16

Do they have a right to be aware of that?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP28:16

It's different in other countries actually, but I think yes, I think people have got a right to know. I'm standing as a candidate at an election. I'm asking people to support me. They want to know what sort of person I am.

Presenter28:28

One of your colleagues I spoke to said the truth was that in fact you're just a loner and you actually, despite the fact you say you'd like to get married, you rather like your life on your own.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP28:37

I don't think that's the case. It's it's it's very funny because uh I've uh I've always assumed that I they would be married. I actually don't think of myself as middle-aged and uh and maybe I am or maybe I'm not.

Presenter28:47

Yeah.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP28:48

I suppose it is. It's it's it's one of these uh things and uh no it just hasn't happened.

Presenter28:53

But are you a loner?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP28:54

No, I'm not learning.

Presenter28:56

But we I i we're back to this image thing again and the contradiction, uh, because the image definitely is of the rather brooding, gloomy Celtic loner.

Presenter29:04

And and here you are sitting.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP29:06

Huh.

Presenter29:06

S smiling broadly across the table, you know, putting yourself out as somebody quite different from that.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP29:12

Well, I don't think I'm quite different uh in the image I put across from what I am. I think people have chosen to see me, perhaps, perhaps because it's the job I do, I don't know, but they've chosen to see me in that way and that's something that I've got to live with. But I don't think if you talk to most of my friends, they would think of me as a loner at all.

Presenter29:28

What they are united in is that you live in a shambolic mess. Is this true?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP29:33

No, it's not Tishambonic. I've got a lot of things.

Presenter29:35

Well, you know what it's gonna mean.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP29:38

It's not uh it it may not be as tidy as it uh as it should be sometimes. Uh it's it's it's my office actually that uh not not anything else. And uh I was uh burgled once and uh my study was uh and the the policeman said it had been absolutely ransacked and I had to tell him that the thieves hadn't been in the study. But I do leave lots of papers around because I I'm working on all sorts of different things at once.

Presenter29:55

Yeah.

Presenter29:59

But there's intellectual order beyond that, is there?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP30:02

Well, I hope so, and uh that's for other people to judge.

Presenter30:05

Record number seven.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP30:07

Well, I think this is about friends, isn't it? Uh it's a sixties song actually, Thank You for the Days, but it's sung by Kristen McCauley. I think it's got a tremendous voice and uh Thank You for the Days is a particularly optimistic song.

Speaker 430:18

Thank you for the dance.

Speaker 430:21

Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me.

Speaker 430:28

I'm thinking of the days

Speaker 430:34

I won't forget a single day, believe me.

Speaker 430:39

I bless the light.

Speaker 430:41

I bless the light, the lights on you, believe me.

Speaker 430:46

Hello?

Presenter30:48

Kirsty McCall and thank you for the days. Tell me about Gordon Browner's castaway. You'd enjoy it, wouldn't you?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP30:55

I would enjoy perhaps the first month. I think there's a mixture of contemplative and active in all of us. We want to sort of reflect and we want to be active at the same time. But I think I would adjust it. I think I would have to do some rather basic things about organizing that perhaps I don't do, provide for myself and so on.

Presenter31:13

Are you practical though? Could you do that? Can can you build shelters and forage for food? Can you see yourself doing that?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP31:18

I think I could do that. I think I would just quickly get down to it and s and see what I could do. But I would always be secretly wishing for

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP31:26

Sort of a takeaway restaurant to appear.

Presenter31:29

And and how important would religion be to you in your solitary confinement? I suppose how important is it to you in your peopled life?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP31:36

Well, I think it is important, but it's a religion for me is a very private thing. It's it's uh it's something that uh that matters, but but not something that um I feel I should make speeches about. It's something obviously from my my upbringing and uh I feel grateful that uh that I had that sort of upbringing, but it's uh it's also something that uh that informs many of the decisions you make, I think.

Presenter31:57

But it was also a teetotal upbringing, wasn't it? Have you stuck to that one too?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP32:00

Uh no, but my father has.

Presenter32:04

Last record.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP32:05

Well, the last record is perhaps a bit predictable, but it's uh very much um

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP32:10

Part of what I see is the a vision of society, a new Britain, a society in which everybody has a chance to realize the potential. I think it is captured by Blake in Jerusalem. I think also the words of Jerusalem are about determination, about resolution.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP32:29

And I also think it's about um people recognizing their dependence on other people, their interdependence.

Speaker 432:52

It must be.

Speaker 433:13

Don't mess with me.

Presenter33:34

Jerusalem sung by the Liverpool Cathedral Choir and the Mast Choirs from Merseyside.

Presenter33:39

If you could only take one of those records, Gordon, which one would it be?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP33:43

I think it would have to be the bark actually because of what I associate with it and it's really looking out over the sea and looking out of the mountains and I think it's a very powerful tune of freedom.

Presenter33:52

And what about your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP33:54

I think I would like uh

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP33:57

Gombridge's story of art, so that I could not only have his great history, it's a tremendous history that he writes about art, but also the chance to look at the prints uh in the book which are well presented and and so I would have, if you like, uh the alternative to seeing exhibitions round the the world or round the country. I would have uh my own exhibition that I could look at uh through the pages of his book.

Presenter34:19

Enst Combrich's story of art What about your luxury?

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP34:23

Well, I think I could probably construct a golf course for myself on the island, and I might be able to do that without a great deal of difficulty. But the one thing I couldn't do is uh is have a tennis partner. So I think a kind of tennis uh serving machine, uh if you'd allow me an endless survivive tennis balls uh plus a racket uh that would be uh of great uh assistance in improving my serve and uh improving my my my game my serve's not bad that's what I was gonna say but my returns are pretty pretty poor so that that would be pretty helpful and of course if I got really desperate I could uh

Presenter34:45

Your returns anyway.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP34:55

Uh send some of the balls out to sea with uh messages engraved on them.

Presenter34:58

You're not to tell me that that's cheating.

Presenter35:01

Gordon Brown, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP35:04

Thank you.

Speaker 335:13

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.