When Labour leaders turn to verse, things have gone from bad to worse. Just as Tony Blair relied on Longfellow in bleak times, Gordon Brown chose William Ernest Henley's "Invictus" to see him through last week's failed coup.
His determination to remain Prime Minister was underpinned by the poem's last lines: "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." Who knows what muse inspired the authors of the Hoon/Hewitt plot against Mr Brown, but the American humorist Ogden Nash must be a contender. "My fellow man I do not care for. I often ask me, What's he there for?"
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