Tonight:
10°c
Brown lacks a social side, says Blair's biographer
Jason Beattie, Chief Political Correspondent14.02.08
Gordon Brown has been accused of lacking a "social, personal and spiritual" side in an extraordinary attack by Tony Blair's biographer.
Dr Anthony Seldon, the headmaster of Wellington School, said the Prime Minister would have benefited from the kind of education provided by his £25,500-a-year school.
In addition to his other defects, Mr Brown had no "moral, sporting or artistic" intelligence, he said. He could only pinpoint two qualities in the Prime Minister - logical and linguistic skills.
"If Gordon Brown had gone to Wellington he'd be a far better Prime Minister," he said, adding that Wellington was pioneering the teaching of the "eight intelligences - logical, linguistic, sporting, artistic, personal, social, moral and spiritual".
"Gordon Brown has the first two; we could have taught him the other six," he said in an interview with Country Life. By contrast Dr Seldon, who has been dubbed New Labour's favourite teacher, went out of his way to praise David Cameron. Asked what kind of Prime Minister the Conservative leader would be, he replied: "Good - he's thoughtful, he listens and he's decisive."
He also heaped praise on Tony Blair, saying his opinion of him rose as he researched his biography. "He's a man of prodigious talent and prodigious human quality," said Dr Seldon.
