Once upon a time, dear readers, there was a moderately successful court treasurer called Gordon Brown. Unfortunately he was not satisfied with his role, and allowed bitterness to fester within his heart, because he could not be king.

Eventually, he complained so much about this unfortunate fact that everyone was sick of him, and to shut him up they let him play at being king for a short while. Of course, he was a very bad king and soon enough he was sent into exile and no-one ever heard of him again.

The end.

But it isn’t, sadly. The days when former prime ministers glided smoothly towards earldom, ease, and exit are long gone. They just stick around for ever- witness John Major – persist in saying unhelpful things, and – because the Devil makes work for idle hands – they write books and reports.

Gordon Brown has spent his later life trying very hard to live down his failure as PM. Unfortunately his interventions in UK political debate have been undermined by one single flaw – sorry, gentle readers - they’re all crap.

We can’t do full justice to the depth or width of GB’s wrongness. His views on devolution have in theory, aimed to preserve the union while in practice empowering separatists to make greater and greater demands. Has the man never heard of Ethelred the Unready and Danegeld?

While a fixture on the international borefest of conferences and seminars – Swift laughed out loud when he discovered that Brown was appointed as the inaugural Distinguished Leader in Residence (sic) by New York University - and while writing portentous tomes called things like Seven Ways to Change the World: How To Fix The Most Pressing Problems We Face and Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World – whose very titles induce first repulsion and then gentle sleep, Brown still found time to produce a 155 page doorstop entitled: A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy.

It might be otiose to point out that virtually every recommendation in this ghastly parade of shop-soiled ideas is wrong: after all Brown wrote it, so you might expect that. But let’s look at a few shall we?

A perennial favourite is to claim that London and the South-East are too successful and should be held back so that everywhere else can catch up. There are two false propositions here: that a fast-growing economy in this region is bad; and that Government can work magic to ensure ‘fairness’ and ‘equity’ (two Brownian favourites). It isn’t bad and no, the government really can’t. The private sector might, but lots of other things the government insists on in terms of planning and energy etc. will have to change first.

‘In Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, there is a united voice across communities demanding change’, says Brown. Weeeeeell maybe, but this reminds Swift of the old saying – ‘the people have spoken and now we need to work out what they mean’. The blithe assumption that they all want the same thing as an intervention addict like Gords is typical of the man.

Brown also wants the abolition of the House of Lords (bad), and its replacement by an elected Assembly of the Nations and Regions (much much badder). Menacingly, this is intended to prevent these measures from ever being reversed, whatever the Commons might want – suggestive of the idea that the new Assembly will have equal powers to the lower house. This is a patently a recipe for legislative chaos: it is scarcely credible that the idea is even proposed.

On a similar note, Brown says ‘devolved self-government should be permanent, expansive, and each elected body held in equal esteem’ - thereby weakening the authority of the real Parliament, weakening the Union, and giving fresh hope to separatists despite their comical inability in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to govern properly.

At this point Swift has his head in his hands and cannot go on. You, dear readers, will have to read the whole thing to appreciate the full syllabus errorum: Swift recommends a stiff drink, before, during, and after.

Now this majestic flapdoodle was actually published back in December 2022. Why is Swift banging on about it now? Should he not be powdering his wig, drinking coffee, watching Game of Thrones etc.?

Because, loyal readers, there are signs that St. Keir the Reliable actually takes some (not all) of this tosh seriously and might be guided by it.

If so, it will be a happy day for Bitter Brown, and a sad day for the country.

Photo Credit: Gordon Brown (CC-BY-2.0)