“... Corbyn isn’t likely to prove a doughty champion of the Union. Moreover – the efforts of Gordon Brown apart – there has been a striking lack of imagination and verve in pro-Union campaigning. Better Together was known – by friend and foe alike – as Project Fear, but it was hardly remarkable for its spine-chilling flair. The baton now ...”

“... In a moment which anticipated the notorious Granita conversation of 1994 between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, he told Stafford Cripps that ‘any time you wish it I shall always be ready to retire in your favour.’ As Bew remarks, ‘That conversation hung in the air for a number of years.’ For, when the ailing and assailed Lansbury formally stepped ...”

“... made, and he would subsequently find himself driven to even more exaggerated support for Blair and Brown. Why was the mesmeric trance so crucial, and why did it have to be maintained at all costs? Well, there was a lot behind it: something of the way of the world, as well as the investment of billions in pre-publicity, policemen and stadiums. The threatened ...”

“... The Global Financial Crisis and the emergency policy responses to it occurred during Gordon Brown’s time in office, but its aftermath has coloured British politics ever since. Nobody knows quite how differently the last fourteen years would have panned out had Brown defeated Cameron and Osborne, either ...”

“... that set Blair apart from the two other most significant British politicians of the last decade. Gordon Brown is another risk-averse politician, but one who prefers to play for low stakes, endlessly and tirelessly working the percentages to build up his political reserves. Ken Livingstone, by contrast, is a politician who seems genuinely happy to take ...”

“... left the civil service after the Hutton Inquiry into David Kelly’s death, but returned when Gordon Brown became prime minister in 2007.) Cameron appointed Greensill, who had left Citigroup to start his own firm, as an adviser. He was given a desk in the Cabinet Office and a secure Number Ten email address. In 2014, he was made a UK crown ...”

“... in particular, without whose endorsement the assent of the people cannot be assured. If either Gordon Brown or Tony Blair needs to summon the British electorate out of their armchairs in order finally to see the other off, then he will. But otherwise we probably shouldn’t wait by the phone. The Daily Mail has taken advantage of this hiatus in the ...”

“... The new Parliament has not attracted major politicians. Labour heavyweights, such as Gordon Brown and Robin Cook, stayed in London; even Alex Salmond, the leader of the SNP, decided after a term in the Scottish Parliament that he preferred to abandon Edinburgh for the clubbability of Westminster. More significantly, after only a year as ...”

“... of the rouble put up the price of foreign imports and gave a boost to Russian industry (Gordon Brown please note). The world oil price recovered, and this assisted exports. In spring 1999 Primakov’s popularity rating reached 70 per cent. Yeltsin was anxious to secure a suitable successor in the forthcoming Presidential election. His rating ...”

“... be below the poverty line – more than one in three in 1998/99 compared with one in ten in 1979. Gordon Brown has greatly increased income support to unemployed families with children but Jack Straw’s curfew can only damage the cause of ‘social inclusion’. The Government appears to be finding it increasingly difficult as it approaches an election ...”

“... easily won a seat which would once have been safely Conservative. The English might think of Gordon Brown as an old curmudgeon but that is not the way his constituents in Fife see him – or if they do they don’t care. There are other indications of ‘federalisation’. All the Northern Irish parties are now in effect nationalist parties. David ...”

“... to replace Peter Mandelson as European commissioner for trade, after a last-minute decision by Gordon Brown to recall Mandelson to London as a government minister. The post would have been left vacant, but José Manuel Barroso told Brown that Britain could keep the office if he gave it to a woman. Ashton happened to ...”

“... Bill’ Sutherland, had a reputation every bit as evil as that of Alastair Campbell or Gordon Brown’s frightful pair, Charlie Whelan and Damian ‘McPoison’ McBride. Nor was it always the PM’s press spokesmen who dripped the poison. At the time of Suez, Eden’s spokesman, William Clark, was startled to get a call from the Tory ...”

“... a Westminster cliché, echoed privately by the Shadow Chancellor and one-time Mandelson intimate, Gordon Brown, that Mandelson is Labour’s real deputy leader. His grip on strategy and policy direction, as well as campaigning and presentation, is increasingly tight. When Mandelson mutters that he is unhappy, say, with Labour plans to abolish compulsory ...”

“... Labour has got the chance for an extended wallow in righteous opposition, having finally dumped Gordon Brown in the process. Have you ever seen such happy politicians? If the voters were trying to punish them for their past transgressions they must be feeling pretty queasy at the sight of all this bonhomie. Next time we are going to have to wield a ...”