May 4, 2010
Gordon Brown: Son of a Preacher Man 0
Has Gordon Brown mentioned that he’s the son of a Church of Scotland minister before? It’s certainly news to me, writes Iain Martin. How did he keep that such a secret?
I’m being facetious. I have now heard the Gordon Brown son of a preacher riff in speeches on so many occasions in the last 15 years or more that it has lost any novelty for this listener. It had its latest outing when he wowed the audience at a Citizens UK rally on Monday. His speech has attracted good reviews. Watch it all in the player above, if you like.
The delivery is certainly impressive. Like the Brown of old he cuts loose and takes rhetorical flight. Here’s Brown the global progressive re-emerging, as though he has suddenly remembered that one of his heroes is Bobby Kennedy.
Brown’s style is very much son of a preacher man, or more accurately Son of the Manse. It’s a very Scottish style and is accompanied by a high moral tone. It is not a surprise that he was fired up Citizens UK, an organisation featuring many faith groups, or that they in turn were fired up by Brown.
Sure, as leader Blair had his high-flown moments of flowery progressive rhetoric. But it was usually tempered. Although he was born in Scotland he never sounded anything other than English. Even the public school he attended, Fettes, is only notionally in Scotland. He appeared to dislike the celtic fringe, or at least to be baffled by it whenever he visited Scotland or Wales.
So, Gordon Brown has rediscovered his firebrand Son of the Manse voice with just three days to go in this campaign. Will it help? It may drive his vote in Scotland to new heights (the party is already doing very well there, as fear of a Tory government rises). But in England?
I hae ma doobts, as they say in my homeland.
• Full story at the Wall Street Journal.
