Gordon Brown: Recent weeks among worst
- 00:00:29
- ITN
Gordon Brown: Recent weeks among worst
Gordon Brown admits he's been hurt by some of the criticism levelled at him and says he could walk away from Downing Street at any time. In an unusually personal newspaper interview, the Prime Minister concedes he wishes he was a better communicator and claims he is not adept at political manoeuvring. "To be honest, you could walk away from all of this tomorrow," he told The Guardian. "I'm not interested in what accompanies being in power. It wouldn't worry me if I never returned to any of those places - Downing Street, Chequers. "That would not worry me at all. And it would probably be good for my children." Mr Brown, who faced down an attempted leadership coup earlier this month, also concedes that he has sometimes struggled to get his message across. But, speaking in the wake of the smeargate controversy - for which Damian McBride, one of his closest aides, was forced to resign - he denied fostering a culture of briefings against his political enemies. He said: "Look, find weaknesses in me, criticise me for my weaknesses - I'm not as great a presenter of information or communicator as I would like to be - but the one thing people should not say is that I'm surrounded by some group of conspirators." However, Mr Brown also signals that the relentless criticism of him since becoming premier in 2007 has got to him. "However much you feel responsible, and however much your integrity is ... is ... and you feel hurt by what people are saying, you've got to deal with it," he said.
ITN | June 20, 2009
