Quotes About Gordon Brown

When New Labour came to power, we got a Right-wing Conservative government. I came to realise that voting Labour wasn't in Scotland's interests any more. Any doubt I had about that was cast aside for ever when I saw Gordon Brown cosying up to Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street.

Sure, sexism is not confined to the Conservatives. Harriet Harman has suggested that Gordon Brown didn't make her deputy prime minister because she was a woman.

Even before he came to power in 1997, Gordon Brown promised to change the accounts to parliament from simple litanies of cash in and cash out, to a more commercial system that took notice of the public property the departments were using. This system is known as resource accounting.

Surely, the best and most effective measure is to get the economy moving and shorten the period of recession or slowdown. That's the rationale for Gordon Brown's 'fiscal stimulus' and it sounds like a good one to me.

Tony Blair is the best friend I've had in politics.

I hope the Spice Girls will come back, although it may be beyond even Bob Geldof to get that to happen.

Billions of taxpayers' money has been wasted in bad deals. The London Underground modernisation, personally negotiated by one of Gordon Brown's team, was a disaster, as the National Audit Office has confirmed.

The worry in Labour circles is that, when pressed, Gordon Brown instinctively moved to cut the benefits of the poor rather than upset businesses and the wealthy.

Imagine a State occasion where the Queen is wearing trainers with her tiara because she thinks it will make people like her better, more folksy. It's unthinkable. But that's patently the thought process Gordon Brown (or his spin doctor) went through before the Prime Minister appeared on the world stage in Beijing without his suit and tie.

Even before he came to power in 1997, Gordon Brown promised to change the accounts to parliament from simple litanies of cash in and cash out, to a more commercial system that took notice of the public property the departments were using. This system is known as resource accounting.

Do you think that I or anybody else who cares about the NHS would stand by and do nothing if we thought the NHS was going to be privatised in Scotland and its funds were going to be cut? Would we stand back and do nothing without a fight? Of course not.

It is our job to work for the government of the day and so that means working for Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, and we need to do those preparations just to be sure that we're ready for whoever you, the British public, elect and that's core to our civil service values over the last 150 years.

The NHS cannot be privatised if that's not the will of the Scottish people, and the Scottish health service will have the funding that's necessary if that's also the will of the Scottish people.

I don't think I've ever sent a text to Gordon Brown because I'm confident that he would absolutely have no idea how to receive it. He barely managed to master WordPerfect 4.1.

Many of our problems are home-grown. Gordon Brown regularly advised the rest of the world to follow his British model of growth. But the model was flawed. It led to the highest level of household debt in relation to income in the world.

I think there were times when, if circumstances had developed, I might have been tempted into politics. I am a fan of Tony Blair. I think Gordon Brown is a fine man, but I think he's headed for one hell of a bloody struggle.

We spent too much time attacking Gordon Brown and Labour rather than setting out our own plans. People had decided they wanted change - the thing they were not sure about was the alternative we were offering, so going on and on about Labour missed the point.

Personally, I have detested Gordon Brown since the moment in 2001 when he tried to make cheap capital out of the Laura Spence affair; as his troubles have piled up, I have felt no sympathy for him at all.

The choices politicians make must be based on values - not an arbitrary, axe-wielding approach to public spending or a dismal exchange between Gordon Brown and David Cameron about percentages that sounds like an argument between different book-keepers.

To reduce repossessions caused by unemployment, Gordon Brown needs to look at cutting the rate of corporation tax for small companies to 20 per cent and the main rate to 25 per cent, while reducing the rate of employers' national insurance by 1% for the smallest companies.

Gordon Brown doesn't often spring surprises. He's usually far too cautious to deliver the unexpected.

My colleague Bill Keegan has written a very short book ('Saving the World?') on an unlikely topic - he is the first economist to try to rehabilitate Gordon Brown.

I find it quite unusual for people to criticise me for doing what I consider to be my duty.

When Gordon Brown becomes prime minister, the balance sheet that reflects his economic stewardship could look very sickly indeed. He could become Labour's biggest liability, not its most marketable asset.