URGH - Feel sorry for Gordon Part 94

Plato will be popping off for a good wash after posting this - is there any low vote-grubbing that Gordon The Courageous won't stoop too?

And if you've missed the speculation - General Election being called for late March is back up there.

"Gordon Brown’s rebranding efforts continued apace today with another emotional interview focusing on his family life.


A few days after the Prime Minister was broadcast speaking movingly about the death of his first-born child, he told a supermarket magazine about his other children’s birthdays and the death of his mother.

Mr Brown’s closest advisors including Lord Mandelson, Ed Balls and David Muir have succeeded in encouraging him to display a softer side.


In the latest personal interview, the Prime Minister revealed that his sons exchange birthday cards with Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca. He said the former South African president was “the most amazing man”.

Youngest son Fraser, three, celebrates his birthday a day before Mr Mandela while John, six, shares a birthday with Graca - “so they send each other cards,” Mr Brown explained. [ Do you believe this ?? Ed ]


The Prime Minister also said he tries to “keep in touch” with Mr Mandela and spoke to him on his birthday last year.


In the interview ahead of the Tesco magazine Mum of the Year awards [ WTF?, Ed ], Mr Brown described how the death of his mother in 2004 affected him.


“You don’t quite realise how much you depended on her until she’s not there,” he said. “Your mother is so central to everything that you are, as well as what you do and how you behave, that it’s very difficult to contemplate life without her.


“Even when my mother was old and finding it difficult to do things, she was always there to talk to and always thinking about how her son was getting on. So when your mother dies it’s the end of an era.


“With her gone you feel a part of what you are has been taken from you too. But the good thing is that a mum’s influence lives on in you.”


He added: “I think she taught me a lot more than I ever acknowledged and you can acknowledge now more easily I think. Never lie or cheat, always do what you consider the right thing and always be dignified in all that you do, and I think that was part of her family upbringing too.”


Mr Brown also said his wife Sarah was a “brilliant” mother. “I can’t begin to say how proud and grateful I am because it just couldn’t happen without her,” he said.  [ What you mean all this crying in public and being introduced by her at your party conference in a feeble attempt to pretend you aren't Gordo vs 2.134? Ed ]