During his Hogmanay break, Gordon Brown watched the DVD described by an aide as “the football film about Leeds”. That would be The Damned United. The story of Brian Clough’s ill-starred reign at Elland Road cannot have been the greatest seasonal fillip for a Prime Minister supposedly doomed to lead the Damned Disunited into a general election defeat.
This week, as the battle for power begins in earnest, Labour is struggling to find signs that Mr Brown is not the Clough of politics. Some Cabinet members have already detected a more collegiate approach. “All the fuss and debate over Christmas has had an impact,” says one senior minister. While Mr Brown has hardly transmogrified into an electoral avatar, the shift may, this minister hopes, imply “a style of government that doesn’t rely wholly on him”. The next few days will see a blizzard of ideas and attacks on both sides.
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