It is incredible that anyone (apart from himself) could seriously think Gordon Brown was in with a cat's chance in hell of getting the top job at the IMF.
Yet he is being touted as a leading candidate and his failure to receive David Cameron's backing is being put down to petulance and party grudges. What rubbish.
His brief tenure at No. 10 showed beyond doubt that Brown is incapable of holding any managerial role. Dominque Strauss-Kahn had problems with women but Brown's difficulties were with man management, including woman management as he was the first prime minister to make the garden girls cry with his violent and abusive behaviour.
But it is how he acted towards other European countries which has ruled him out so totally.
When he was Chancellor, he treated other EU finance ministers with contempt. He refused to speak to them and Brussells correspondents reported how he would turn his back on them or refused to join their discussions at summits. Why would other European governments think this is a man they could do business with?
They want an IMF director who is sympathetic to the euro project and who will do what he can to helpin their hour of need. Yet Brown's antagonism to the single currency is legendary and he (and Ed Balls) boast about keeping the UK out.
As if all of this wasn't enough, when the recession hit, Gordon Brown went strutting about swaggeringly claiming that he had saved the world and its economies. Politicians may be boastful but they don't like to see others doing the boasting.
As for Cameron's attitude, while it is only marginally true that Brown's spending landed Britain with its huge national debt, his reckless support for the banks is more than partly responsible for the tens of billions that had to be spent bailing them out. Hardly a good record for runninng the IMF.
Gordon Brown's big problem was always that he believed his abilities were far greater than they are. This time, no amount of bullying will get him the job he obsessively feels should be his.
Take Me To Your Leader Writer
- David Seymour
- ...has written more leaders (newspaper editorials) than anyone alive or dead, an honour still to be recognised by the Guiness Book of Records or the Nobel judges. I have produced them for the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, Sunday Mirror, Today, the Sunday People, the Evening Post (Hemel Hempstead), the Caithness Courier and the Student (Edinburgh). My creed is: Have opinions, Will travel.
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