Barry: Gordon Brown less of a ‘lad’ than David Cameron

Jul 15 2009 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WHAT was Gordon Brown like as a young man?

Was he the kind of guy who liked to neck 15 shots of tequila before regurgitating them on the street soon after?

Did he go on the 1970s equivalent of a Club 18-30 holiday, getting drunk with the boys and trying to chat up any woman within leering distance?

I doubt it somehow.

In fact, Mr Brown was the same political anorak then that he is now – he was the youngest ever rector of Edinburgh University.

His student evenings probably involved a sensible amount of red wine and an earnest discussion about global economics with his then girlfriend, an exiled Romanian princess.

In other words, he was not a lad.

And, if he wasn’t one then, I doubt very much that he is one now.

But according to former health minister Patricia Hewitt, the Prime Minister is indeed such a man.

She said this week: “Gordon Brown’s inner circle has always been small, almost entirely men and as far as I can see really rather laddish in its culture.”

This conjures up visions of the Prime Minister and his trusted lieutenants sitting round a small table in Downing Street late at night, playing cards, having belching contests and discussing the latest episode of Top Gear.

A little unlikely, I would suggest.

Perhaps Ms Hewitt does not quite understand the concept of laddishness.

This should not be surprising. After all she supplements her meagre MP’s income with a bit of consultancy work for a private equity firm and the chemical and cosmetics giant Boots.

I imagine the great and the good with whom she now mixes aren’t the type of people who have subscriptions to FHM.

Ms Hewitt’s point in calling her former colleague “laddish” was that he excludes women from positions of real influence in Government. And I think she’s got a point.

But the choice of the word “laddish” is inaccurate.