Quiet man’s damning assessment

s A politician, former chancellor Alistair Darling was never one to indulge in hyperbole. He had a reputation for calm managerial competence. Some said he was even a little dull. But it is this reputation for eqanimity which makes Mr Darling’s characterisation of Gordon Brown as “brutal and volcanic” particularly damning.

In one sense Mr Darling’s revelation, said to be in his book about his time as chancellor which will be published at the weekend, tells us little we did not already know, or at least suspected, about relations between numbers 11 and 10 Downing Street after Tony Blair finally stepped aside. Reports that Mr Brown tried to replace Mr Darling and put his acolyte Ed Balls in charge of the nation’s finances were never denied. It comes as little surprise that Mr Brown appointed, or tried to appoint, other key allies to Treasury posts to keep an eye on Mr Darling. So far, so predictably paranoid.

What is perhaps more shocking is that if you add Mr Darling’s judgment to the description of Mr Brown as “psychologically flawed”, said to have been uttered by Mr Blair’s former aide Alastair Campbell, you come to an obvious question: why was a man with so many faults allowed first to be chancellor for so long and then to become prime minister? Mr Brown is one of our most able political theorists, an intellectual with a keen strategic brain who, with Mr Blair, helped make Labour electable. However, Mr Darling’s verdict makes it hard not to conclude Mr Brown lacked the strength of character, the fortitude and the self-confidence to be a true political leader.