The questions Gordon Brown should have been asked

Richard Littlejohn lists the questions that he thinks interviewers should have asked Gordon Brown recently:

"Not for the first time, I'm left wondering why anyone bothers to interview Gordon Brown.

He is genetically incapable of giving an honest answer to a straight question and cloaks everything in a bogus morality.

Brown sticks to his script and drones on regardless of what he has been asked. He lies, dissembles, completely ignores the question, refuses to accept any responsibility for anything, or tries to claim credit for something which is actually nothing to do with him.

Half the time he doesn't even get asked the right questions.

Both Andy Marr and Evan Davis had the opportunity to ask him about his own expenses claims, but flunked it.

It would have been a waste of time, obviously, but the interviews could have gone something like this. . .

'Prime Minister, for the past 12 years you have lived virtually free-of-charge in a grace-and-favour flat in Downing Street. Why were you claiming second-home allowance on a property five minutes' walk from the Palace of Westminster?'

'What people want me to do is get on with the job . . .'

'Actually, what people want is a General Election, but we'll come back to that. You spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money on that property, even splitting the cost of a new kitchen over two accounting periods to claim the maximum available...'

'Look, I'm disgusted and that's why we are setting up a National Committee on Constitutional Renewal. . .'

'Why have you now put that flat in your wife's name? Is it to avoid Capital Gains Tax when you come to sell it?'

'Appalled, angry, Presbyterian conscience, moral compass, Gentlemen's Club...'

'Why have you flipped your second home to your house in Scotland and renovated that at taxpayers' expense, too?'

'My father was a Church of Scotland minister. . .'

'Do you regret selling Britain's gold reserves at car-boot sale prices, now that it's risen to over $950 an ounce?'

'I was brought up in a family where integrity and telling the truth. . .'

'Then why don't you just answer the bloody question?'

'This is a global financial crisis, which began in America. I am getting on with the job...'

'Prime Minister, go away.' "

All joking aside, the questions about Gordon Brown's housing arrangements do seem to be off the agenda of all interviewers. I would like to know two things.

First why our Prime Minister who has lived for the past 12 years in grace-and-favour accommodation in Downing Street claimed second-home allowance on a property five minutes' walk from the Palace of Westminster?

I'd also like to know how he justifies the transfer of his flat to his wife, you can read more about that here.


It seems to me that interviewers, especially BBC ones) are too respectful of Gordon Brown, maybe as well they are scared of what he might do in revenge for being asked a really probing question.