Brown Strange? Who thought Thatcher was normal!

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Over on Liberal Conspiracy (cross posted from his own blog) Paul Linford has a strong piece about the vicious personalisation of attacks on Brown. He notes the build up and how he is called "strange" by Cameron in the Times. This is a strategy to rile him and see if he will explode in public. My guess is that if it works it is likely to rebound - see Hilary's tears. Brown maybe getting things wrong. But he is a serious political figure in a land steeped in superficiality - if that is not a contradiction in terms. Oddly enough this has proved one of his great advantages - and it goes along with being weird, for example reading books... But, what could be more strange, than modeling yourself on Blair? The fact is that to be a driven politician today demands a personality defect. My guess is that the Brits are still sufficiently not so Americanised that they can live with this, and indeed expect their PMs to be mad. Would you want the regular guy next door to be PM? Would you want a PM live next door? The proof of this is Thatcher. She was respected even though her popular vote always declined. But everyone knew that she was as strange as a bat out of hell. The trouble is that Brown does not have the panache to lean across the dispatch box and saw to Cameron, "I understand that you are concerned about strange people occupying high places in our public life - may I lend you a mirror."