An ordinary kind of guy?

Gordon Brown’s claim on Andrew Marr’s show yesterday to be a “pretty ordinary guy” has occasioned much mirth, not least because of its echo – subconscious or otherwise – of Tony Blair’s famous remark in the midst of the Ecclestone Affair 11 years ago that he was a “pretty straight sort of guy.” As one senior Labour figure put it to me: “The one thing Gordon just is not, is ordinary.”

But support for the PM’s description of himself comes in Adam Boulton’s gripping new account of the Blair Administration, Tony’s Ten Years, which I heartily recommend to all CoffeeHousers. As part of a much broader analysis, Boulton compares and contrasts pub anecdotes involving the two men. A visit to the Duke of Wellington in Southampton in 1997 with Blair was “ a rather dislocated experience”, the Labour leader being keen to order some wine from room service but Alastair Campbell twisting the leader’s arm to go to the boozer.