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A tribal Labour leader under fire... and the tycoon with a media empire
12.11.09
Gordon Brown
Prime Minister and Labour Party leader
Age: 58
Politics: Tribal Labour, influenced by the Church of Scotland. He has warm relations with moderate trade union leaders and is influenced by socialist writers such as Tawney, Tressell and Cole.
Beginnings: Raised in Kirkcaldy, where his father John Ebenezer Brown was a minister of the Church of Scotland and a key influence.
Career: Almost entirely spent in politics but for a few years was a Scottish TV journalist. Elected to the Commons in 1983, he quickly rose to shadow Cabinet and was the most powerful Chancellor in recent years before wresting the keys to No 10 from Tony Blair in 2007.
Rupert Murdoch
Media magnate and billionaire
Age: 78
Politics: Tribal capitalist, operating way above ordinary party politics at leader-to-leader level. Smashed the print unions at Wapping and formed an alliance with Margaret Thatcher.
Beginnings: Father Sir Keith, was an Australian regional newspaper magnate who groomed his son to take over.
Career: After transforming the family business, he moved into the UK, America and Asia. There he reinvented the tabloid and created Sky, Fox and a global film, television and publishing empire worth billions.
Reader views (1)
Gordon Brown should have stayed in Kirkcaldy and filled a pulpit where he could rant on his socialist dogma without doing too much harm. He forgets there are people like me who spent working days of 16/18 hours to pay for the extras. Margaret Thatcher was right! 'The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money'.
- Douglas Cook, Glasgow UK
