Shared Opinion | 18 April 2009

As time moves on, and we forget about their slurs and their malice and their rather telling fantasies about seeing George Osborne dressed up as Marlene Dietrich, perhaps what we should remember about Gordon Brown’s inner circle is their control freakery. They don’t trust hospitals to heal, they don’t trust schools to teach, and they don’t even trust scurrilous anonymous blogs to make up their own unsubstantiated gossip. They look out across this land and they see only sheep. Whereas, in fact, we are goats. No, seriously. It’s a good analogy. At least, I think it is. Let’s see.

It comes from the great Terry Pratchett. ‘For sheep,’ he wrote, about something entirely different, ‘are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.’ If Damian McBride and Derek Draper thought they were dealing with goats, is my point, they wouldn’t have tried so hard.