Man from Uncle Joe: Gordon compared to Stalin
Updated on 20 March 2007
Chancellor Gordon Brown was branded "Stalinist" today by his former top civil servant Lord Turnbull, once Whitehall's most senior mandarin.
The ex-Cabinet secretary and permanent secretary to the Treasury said Mr Brown treated other senior ministers "with more or less complete contempt".
Lord Turnbull said in the Financial Times of Mr Brown's style: "You cannot help admire the sheer Stalinist ruthlessness of it all."
The scathing comments came on the eve of Mr Brown's 11th, and probably last, Budget and on the day Labour's ruling National Executive Committee was meeting to decide the procedure for electing the party's new leader and deputy.
Prime Minister Tony Blair smiled but made no comment as he arrived for the meeting when he was asked if he had read the FT.
Deputy leadership contender Harriet Harman sprang to Mr Brown's defence.
The constitutional affairs minister said: "I can only talk from my own
personal experience of working with Gordon for over 25 years, and he does listen."
'I can only talk from my own experience of working with Gordon for over 25 years, and he does listen'Hariet Harman
Lord Turnbull's comments were gleefully related around Westminster, after the years of bitter feuding between camps of rival supporters loyal to either the Chancellor or the Prime Minister.
The former mandarin, Cabinet secretary from 2002 to 2005, noted that the Chancellor tended to keep out of the limelight when difficult decisions had to be taken.
Comparing him to TS Eliot's "mystery cat", who was never to be found at the scene of a crime, he said: "The Chancellor has a Macavity quality. He is not there when there is dirty work to be done."
