Hello, I'm Kristy Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1996 and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a politician, the son of a Scottish Calvinist minister. He appears to many to survive on a mixture of intellectual strength and natural self-discipline. Went to Edinburgh University at the age of 16, its youngest student for 50 years, and entered Parliament in 1983. Rapidly promoted, he moved to the front benches within four years and was seen as a potential leader of his party. But when the leadership election came, he stood aside.

He's never held high office and he's never married but has voiced ambitions to do both. He's the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. Gordon, holding high office is presumably top of your agenda as we enter the last 12 possible months of the year. Government's life? I think I'd come back from a desert island for an election and for government. We've waited a long time and I think we work as a team. We've been working as a team for many years to get this result. We've had to make huge changes. I was one of the people Advocating big changes. You say to get this result, does that mean you think it's only a matter of time? Now, have the election and you're in? Well, perhaps I should say the result we want. I take nothing for granted and I don't think anybody's complacent. But I think there is a tide in politics and I think people see the need for... Change and I would like to be part of that change. But you might have said that four years ago of course. In fact you were saying that four years ago and it didn't happen.

More so now. People's thoughts you know now are about the future and I think new ideas and a new politics is what I think people want. But it's not over till the fact... It certainly isn't and there is no complacency as I've said. Did you consider though going back to 92 when as I say people thought it was nearly in the bag until a few days before, you'd have been 41 years old. At the time, so there was still time then to turn away as it were and begin a different career rather than slogging on in opposition yet again. Did you consider doing that? Not at all. I think a choice I made a few years before to go into Parliament is a choice I want to stand by. I think it's important that when you make a commitment to public service you see it through. So it was a sort of Calvinist sense of duty, was it? It's often thought that politicians are simply out for themselves and certainly we do a lot to give people that impression but I think at best people see public service as something

is about the country and about the future of the country and I passionately believe in things that I want to see achieved. Will the sense of duty and Calvinist self-discipline and so on do the trick if the unthinkable as far as you're concerned happens and you lose the next election? Well, we'll keep going I think, but I don't see that happening but of course as I said I'm not complacent. Tell me about your first record. Well the first record goes back very far to my youth and of course as you rightly said I was brought up as the son of a Church of Scotland minister. I don't think it was a Calvinist background as such. Was very much a social Christianity, but of course it revolved around Christmas and Easter and around hymns and churches, and that's why I've chosen a hymn, 'See Amid the Winter

But I've chosen it sung by Jessie Norman, who I think is the most brilliant singer I've heard. She used to come to the Edinburgh Festival and I used to hear her. See Amid the Winter Snow I think brings out the full range of her voice. So it's a Christian song, but it's sung by I think the world's best woman singer.

Norman singing see amid the winter snow with the New York Choral Society describe to me Gordon Brown if you will you as a wee boy living by the sea? - Sport, I think. Football, rugby, tennis, running. I think I was a sports enthusiast right from the... In the beginning and I think I remember running all the time. That's what I remember about my background. And of course I loved playing rugby. I played a lot of tennis and played for my local team against all the clubs in Scotland and I ran in the Scottish National School by championships. A sprinter. So that was my growing up there. And you had two brothers? Not politics, not politics, their sport. Two brothers? Brothers, one older, one younger. My older brother was a tremendous dynamo. He started a local newspaper at the age of 12 and I was a sports editor. We really were sort of part of a local community and I think the church at the centre of it with my father being a

And I remember also beggars coming to the door all the time and I think perhaps in one of the first occasions that my mother and father left me at home on my own, I think perhaps with my older brother who disappeared, some chap came to the door begging for money. And I invited him in and as I thought I should, I offered him food and asked him to help himself in the kitchen. My parents returned home and they found it was the town's leading house breaker whom I had invited in. But that was applying the principles a bit too far I think. But it was quite a strict upbringing I've read. I mean what sort of things would your parents insist upon that perhaps other families didn't? Well we did go to church every Sunday, twice a Sunday. We did involve ourselves in all the religious events of the time. But I don't regard it as strict.

I regard my father and mother who's still alive as very fair. Were you a very serious-minded little chap? Well, I went to school at four and to secondary school at ten and I was in an experiment at school where they pushed people a year, in fact two years ahead in my case. So I ended up doing my old grades at 14, my high as the sort of Scottish A-levels at 15 and that's why, as you rightly said, Up at university at 16 so I was pushed a bit on. But I ask you about whether you were serious minded or not because you do have a sort of gloomy image I suppose. People talk about you being the John Knox of the economic crisis and yet you're not that in person. There's a sort of contradiction there isn't there? I suppose I'm being brought up to think that economics are serious questions and although you can be funny in a way. Sorts of other areas, it's important that people understand you're serious about their money and about the way you run the economy.

If I give that impression, I'm sorry about it, but it's one of these things that people say about you. You don't believe about yourself, but you don't seem to be able to do a great deal about it. But what would your brothers, I wonder if asked, what sort of adjectives would they supply to describe you? I think they would see me as a person who told jokes all the time. We did lots of things together. We'd go on holiday, play golf, play tennis together, and I think that's more what they would say about me than about sort of serious political statements. I hope. Record number two. My second choice is a classical piece which I think is absolutely wonderful. I stay in a village outside Edinburgh and look over both the Forth Bridge and the sea. And this... Bach Suite No. 3 in D gives all the sense of freedom that looking out in the sea and the mountains on another side, the hills on another side, actually gives you. When I came to London and went to one or two concerts when I first became an MP, Bach, I really did think was superb.

part of boss

Number three in D major played by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Mariner. You'd have been what, twelve or thirteen when Harold Wilson came to power. Were you aware then even of that end to a lengthy period of Tory government? I remember not only when Harold Wilson became leader of the Labour Party after Hugh Gates called sadly died and writing a sort of an article in my school magazine about it which perhaps doesn't pay rereading, but I was up in Perthshire on holiday with my parents. My father comes from a sort of farming background and we were up there when the by-election that brought Sir Alec Douglas Hume back into Westminster as the House of Commons as both Prime Minister and the Member for Perth. And I sort of followed that campaign and I was

fascinated by it. The two things that really did strike me was first of all, we went round the villages to have a look at what he was saying and he gave the same speech everywhere, which I now understand, but didn't quite understand then. And then Sir Alec was asked whether he would live in the constituency and I think it's almost unthinkable for an MP not to live in his constituency now. And he said no, no he couldn't because he had quite enough houses And that actually went down quite well in first year. So it was interesting, it was interesting. It led me into politics. Really? I mean, you feel that... what age would you have... When he was, I mean that would have been ten years. I was very interested in what was happening and I offered to support the Labour candidate but he didn't actually think he needed my help. So you went off to Edinburgh University as we say and in fact got a first in history 1919 but your university career was dominated from an early stage wasn't it by physical injury you damaged one of your eyes playing rugby What happened?

I ended my school days playing rugby against the former pupils and then I went off to university and something had gone wrong with my eye but I'd been concussed in that match and it later turned out that as I arrived at university the first thing I did was see a surgeon who told me I had got one of these sports injuries, a retinal detachment, and then I missed part of the first year, part of the second year. You're part of the third year because I had a succession of eye operations. You also had to lie down and keep very still with such a thing. Well, at that time, before all the great scientific advances that really did help me and sorted things out, you had to lie flat for weeks blinded so that the retina could set in place. Very frustrating 16th year, 17th year and 18th year having all these operations. Long periods of recovery so that you didn't get your eye hurt. But it didn't settle back into place? No, one of them didn't. The other one...

Did. Oh, both were out? Yes, and the interesting thing was that it was the great sort of technological advances, laser treatment, silicon bands and so on, that sorted it out. And so I got off really. It was a frustrating time being a teenager. I think the worst thing was that I couldn't play rugby or football again. I'm now able to play tennis, so that's good. But you've effectively only got one eye, have you? I've got the sight and only one eye, yes. What does that mean? Not a great deal of difference at all. I think people might be suspicious of my driving, but apart from that it doesn't make any difference at all. To the gloomy image as it were. Maybe you don't smile as much because we don't come into focus quite as early on. No, it actually doesn't make any difference and I feel very lucky actually because it could have gone very badly wrong and of course you think that that's the case when you get this diagnosed first of all. Record number three. You can't really think about growing up in the 60s without thinking about it.

About the Beatles and Hey Jude I remember from being in hospital and it's both sad to start with but actually very positive by the time it ends and it's one of the great Beatles The Beatles and Hey Jude. Ten years Gordon Brown then followed between university and Westminster and you were a lecturer and very active in politics. Was there tension between the two in your mind? Were you determined from then on to go into politics mainstream? Or might you have been a writer? I did write a bit and I wrote a few books.

Books, which I enjoy doing, and I really enjoyed lecturing. It's a great thing. When I started off going to university lectures, at lectures who spoke... Without notes for an hour and I thought that was a marvelous achievement. My father had given his sermons without notes as well and I didn't think I could ever... And of course you get so blasé by the time you're finished that that's exactly what you are doing. Do you give speeches now without notes? I tend not to use notes in most of the speeches I give, but I hope it doesn't show too much. But was politics always the aim? I was a candidate from the age of 25. I'd been rector of Edinburgh University as well, and I'd been chosen. By the students to chair the university governing body. So I got into politics that way and I ended up at the age of 21 making all the decisions about millions of pounds being spent, High Court judges and professors around me. So I was really... Given a baptism of fire and that drew me further into becoming a labour candidate.

Which I was asked to do in the constituency, and really the area where my father's family comes from, which is Fife and the Famineist. That was 1983 you got in, MP for Dunfermline East, you seem to be part of what one might call a Scottish mafia in the nicest sense of the term. Which was to take over the Labour Party from a kind of Welsh mafia, you know, from Michael Foote and Neil Kinnock and so on. Suddenly there was John Smith, Tony Blair, you, Donald Duhr, Derry Irving. Did you all know each other? Yes, we did all know each other, but I think conspiracy theories are not very strong here. We're part of a team, but not exclusively Scottish. Tony Blair was part of it, because I came into Parliament with... Tony, we shared an office, we travelled... How close were you during the 80s? Very close and still are. Did you always sense a certain rivalry between you and Tony because you were contemporaries, you'd come in at the same time, you were jockeying for position.

At all was there a sense of I wonder if he's going to do better than I do? No not really and that's both the amazing thing about the situation and and about Tony we really developed together we we had this office in the House of Commons which we shared which didn't even have a window. It was the most amazing place and you barely get an office and when you get one it's like a small box and so a lot of our ideas were formulated in that small office. You used to write speeches for him in the small box, didn't you? I mean some of our speeches were joint efforts, but all Tony's great speeches His own. But all young politicians hope eventually to be Prime Minister, you know, hope to rise certainly to lead their party and ultimately to be Prime Minister and your political credentials were impeccable, you were a fud. Tracker, you were used to winning, you must have in your innermost have contemplated inheriting the mantle of the Labour Party at some point.

I think that was always a possibility, but when the time came and John sadly died, it seemed the right thing that Tony should be the leader. It would have been inconceivable that Tony and I would have stood against each other and we didn't. And it was the right thing that he took the job. I want to ask you a bit more about that in a minute, but I suppose the point one could make there is of course you...

You might still inherit it. - Well, Jim Callaghan, I don't suppose he minds me saying it, wrote me a letter after that and said that he thought it was a good thing that I did standing down so that there was no contest. And of course he was absolutely right that there shouldn't be a contest. And he said, well, of course he had become leader at, I think, in his mid-60s. And of course, politics changes, it does. You've just got to wait and see. I feel privileged to be part of a team. - Okay, next record, number four. - Well, I've actually chosen the Gallic rendition of the 23rd Psalm, partly because of what I've been saying about my upbringing, and it certainly reminds me of that. And partly also because it was sung so beautifully at John Smith's funeral. And I think the loss that people felt right across the country was of a friend, someone whom they had begun to know and understand. And I think this beauty of the...

That song encapsulated not just that we were mourning the loss of someone but we were celebrating a life.

The 23rd Psalm, Gallic tune and Gallic words sung by the Lord. By Kenna Campbell at John Smith's funeral. It was the right decision then for you and Tony Blair not to oppose each other, but how did you arrive at the decision as to which of you should step aside? Well I think that Tony had presented his case about the change that was necessary in a way that was very attractive to the public. That Tony's got tremendous charisma and was very successful in presenting...

His home office brief and had clearly a set of ideas that we both shared that he could communicate very well. He was the more marketable commodity, is that what you're saying? No, not at all. He was the man with ideas and vision. But you had the same ideas which you had formed together as you described. And an ability to present them. But he also, I think, had a unique and has a unique ability to communicate with the public. What it seems to me you're saying is that the decision was made on the basis of style rather than substance because the substance was the same I can say that because the ability to communicate with the public and to take these tough decisions about Clause 4 and so on, what we've now seen in Tony Blair, a man of real steel and resolution and determination, is what I appreciated were the qualities that he did have. Qualities that you don't have? No, I don't say I don't have them but Tony has them in tremendous abundance. He'll make a great Prime Minister. How large was the factor that...

He is a family man and that the electorate on the whole might find it more appealing than the idea of a bachelor prime minister? Well, I don't know. That would have been something for the party to decide. I mean, I'm not married. It just hasn't happened. I hope it does and it may yet and probably will do. But I think once you get into parliament... If you're not married by the time you get there, you're in a situation where you're living in two places really at once, in London and in your constituency in Scotland and things become whatever, but you don't hear much about him. Getting married you hear a lot about them getting divorced. But was that a factor in the decision? It was not a factor in the decision, I don't think so, no. Not at all, never mentioned? Mentioned now. It leaves you of course in a strong position as Shadow John. You can perhaps do what you like as Tony Blair owes

No matter how much... No, not at all. I wouldn't look at it that way at all. He makes his decisions and I take the instructions if that's how it's got to go. But it's much more of a partnership than that, isn't it? An unusual position. You've got a deal basically and no one would blame you if you had? No, I wouldn't consider it a deal. We've got a strong friendship. It's a friendship that survived thick and thin. There's been obviously lots of occasions when we've had to make difficult decisions, but it's a friendship that survived and I hope will be of use to the country. More music. Well, this is a Scottish song, Runray.

Rendition of Loch Lomond. And the reason I've chosen it is that I would want, if I was on a desert island, to have some Scottish music because of my background. But I don't want Scotland to be presented as sometimes it is, as simply a nation living in the past. So I've chosen one that actually is about the real Scotland as I see it, what people in Scotland really think that they want and we want to be a modern country with a vibrant, dynamic economy and culture. And and Runrig is... Rock, whatever you call it, but singing a traditional Scottish song. Where the sun shines on loved ones. Where me and my true love spend many days on the

Runrig and Loch Lomond. Can we talk about a stakeholder society for a moment, Gordon?

Is it simply a slogan or is it a policy? It's a policy and it's a theme that matters, because if people don't feel they have a stake in society, if you've got 30% youth unemployment in some of our inner cities, then you will have problems. And I think it's very important that we expect in return for the opportunities that we create responsibilities taken in turn by young people. And that's why having a... Stake carries not just opportunities but carries responsibility. But when you put it like that it does sound like a slogan because it's applying to everything across the board. Now we see Tony Blair... In John Lewis's department store, nodding approval at it because he says this is how you should run a company. Share, allow more employees to share in its profits and so on. Now is that what you're Companies should in an ideal world all be run like Marks and Spencer or John Lewis. Well, I define a stakeholder as a society... Economy is opportunities for people to work. I think that's important and I've said that. Opportunities for people to invest and to save in the future and opportunities for people

Success of the firms. But none of those things you see sound particularly different from what the Tories tell us. Oh I think they are different. That's the great problem with new labour isn't it? No I think they are different because the dividing line is not just that I believe passionately that equality of opportunity for all is the key not just a strong society but is also it is the key to driving economy. Still believe that the Labour government would end up putting up taxes in the long run? Well, I don't think that is the general view of the population. And I think once people understand that I am building my tax policy...

First principles and that there is no desire on my part to raise people's taxes for the sake of it, then I think they do understand that Labour is different both from Labour of the past and from a Conservative government that's imposed very high taxes. But you consistently refuse to put the flesh on the bones of those policies because that's what happened last time, isn't it? And in the end Labour didn't win because people felt they were going to be more highly taxed? No, what I've done is said here are the things that I can tell you. Other things we've got to look at the state of the economy and then report to you at the time of the election.

You can't announce tax policies two or three years before you know what the state of the economy is going to be. Record number six? Well record number six is Cry Freedom, partly because of a huge interest I've had over a long period of years in films. I'm particularly interested in the British film industry and what we can do about it and therefore Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom is one film that I do really admire. And I've chosen Cry Freedom also because I think it's some of these great international causes dealing with the problems of apartheid that really have inspired a generation of young people over 30 or 40 years.

I think we've also seen in South Africa a lack of bitterness given all the changes that have been brought about and cry freedom represents that as well. George Fenton and Jonas Guangwa and Cry Freedom. I've always asked Gordon Brown in interviews I've read about women and marriage. Does that irritate you? Not at all. It's a question that I expect and...

It's a question that I think I've already answered during the course of this interview, that it just hasn't happened. It's one of the things that I suppose I'm surprised it hasn't happened. It is interesting though isn't it that it would probably be less of an issue for you if you'd been married three times. People don't remark on that but... Do remark on non-marriage? I think that's true and it certainly appears in all the profiles. I've got some very good friends obviously and it just hasn't happened. It's one of the things that... But do you understand people's curiosity? It is something that middle-aged men and women have to put up with. People want to know... You're gay or whether there's some flaw in your personality that you haven't made a relationship. May feel, look, I don't have to answer these questions, but do you perhaps accept that as a public person,

you have to pay? Well I don't mind answering the questions, it's something that comes up and certainly I think people have a right to know what the politicians do and what their arrangements are. There is a fascination. I'm not surprised at that. Do they have a right to know? It's different in other countries actually, but I think, yes, I think people have got a right to know. I'm standing as a candidate at an election, I'm asking people to support me, they want to know what sort of person I am. One of your colleagues I spoke to said the truth was that in fact you're just a loner and you actually, despite the fact you say you'd like to get married, you'd rather like On your own. I don't think that's the case. It's very funny because I've always assumed that I... I actually don't think of myself as middle-aged and maybe I am or maybe I'm not. I suppose 45 just about is. I suppose it is. It's one of these things and it just doesn't happen.

But are you a loner? No, I'm not a loner. But we're back to this image thing again and the contradiction, because the image definitely is of the rather brooding, gloomy Celtic loner. And here you are, smiling broadly across the table, putting yourself or somebody quite different from that. Well, I don't think I'm quite different in the image I put across from what I am. I think people have chosen to see me, perhaps because it's the job I do, I don't know, but they've chosen to see me in that way and that's something I've got to live with. But I don't think if you talk to most of my friends, they would think of me as a person. The loner at all. What they are united in is that you live in a shambolic mess is this true? No it's not shambolic.

Well, you know where everybody is. It may not be as tidy as it should be sometimes. It's my office, actually, not anything else. And I was burgled once and my study was... And the policeman said I'd been absolutely ransacked and I had to tell him that the thieves hadn't been in the study. I do leave lots of papers around because I'm working on all sorts of different things at once. But there's intellectual order beyond that, is there? Well, I hope so and that's for other people to judge. Record number seven. Well, I think this is about Friends, isn't it? It's a '60s song, actually, thank you for the days, but it's sung... Kirsten McCaulk. I think it's got a tremendous voice and Thank You For The Days is a particularly optimistic song. Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me.

Kirsty MacCarlin, thank you for the days. Tell me about Gordon Browner's castaway. You'd enjoy it, wouldn't you? Perhaps the first month, I think there's a mixture of contemplative and active in all of us. We want to sort of reflect and we want to be active at the same time. But I think I would adjust it. I think I would have to do some rather basic things about organizing that perhaps I don't do, and provide for myself and so on. Are you practical though? Could you do that? Can you build shelters and forage for food? Can you see yourself doing that? I think I could do that. I think I would just quickly get down to it and see what I... Do but I would always be secretly wishing for sort of a takeaway restaurant to appear. And how important would religion be to you in your solitary confinement? I suppose how important is it to you in your people's life?

Well, I think it is important, but religion for me is a very private thing. It's something that matters, but not something that I feel I should make speeches about. It's something obviously from my upbringing, and I feel grateful that I had that sort of upbringing, but it's also something that informs many of the decisions you make. But it was also a teetotal upbringing, wasn't it? Have you stuck to that one too? No, but my father has. Last record. Well, the last record is perhaps a bit predictable, but it's very much part of what I see as a vision of society, a new Britain, a society in which everybody has a chance to realise the potential. I think it is captured by Blake and Jerusalem. I think also the words of Jerusalem are about determination, about resolution.

I think it's about people recognizing the dependence on other people, their interdependence.

Jerusalem sung by the Liverpool Cathedral Choir And the mast choirs from Merseyside. If you could only take one of those records, Gordon, which one would it be?

I think it would have to be the bark actually because of what I associate with it and it's really looking out of the sea and looking out of the mountains and I think it's a very powerful tune of freedom. And what about your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare? I think I would like Gombrich's story of art so that I can not only have his great history, it's a tremendous history that he writes about art, but also the chance to look at the prints in the book which are well presented and so I would have, if you like, the alternative to seeing exhibitions around the world or around the country, I would have my own exhibition that I could look at through the pages of his book. Ernst Gombrich, Story of Art. What about your luxury? Well, I think I could probably construct a golf course for myself on the island and I might be able to do that without a great deal of difficulty but the one thing I couldn't do is have a tennis partner. So I think a kind of tennis... Serving machine, if you'd allow me an endless supply of tennis balls, plus a racket, that would be of great...

In improving my serve and improving my game. Your returns anyway? My serve's not bad, that's what I was going to say, but my returns are pretty poor, so that would be pretty helpful. And of course if I got really desperate, I could send some of the balls out to sea with messages engraved on them. You're not to tell me that, that's cheating. Gordon Brown, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.