KEY POINTS:
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has likened himself to Heathcliff, the brooding, intense character in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
Brown normally avoids being compared with other figures but his guard dropped in an interview with New Statesman, published yesterday, in which interviewer Gloria De Piero put it to Brown that many women viewed him as a Heathcliff-like figure.
Given that the character is famed for his vindictive side, the Prime Minister might have been expected to recoil in horror at such a comparison. But no. "Absolutely correct," he replied, before adding: "Well, maybe an older, [wiser] Heathcliff."
Perhaps it is the character's passion that Brown associates with. But, keen to correct any impression that he may be a tortured soul, he added: "I've tried to stop biting my nails. They're pretty good." Then, as he glanced down at his hands, he laughed and added: "OK, they're not."
Brown used the interview as an opportunity to scotch rumours that the number of hours' sleep he is getting is declining in proportion to his opinion-poll ratings. He told the magazine that his sleep patterns varied, but that he got more than the four needed by Margaret Thatcher.
The Prime Minister also dismissed rumours that (like Heathcliff) he has a short fuse. "When you've got difficult decisions to make, you've got to be calm and considered. I don't generally lose my temper." He also insisted that he would not be driven out of Downing Street before the next general election. "I'm here to do a job and I'll leave when I finish. I'm not here for the sake of [it]."
There is mounting speculation that senior Cabinet ministers will tell him this northern autumn to resign in order to give the party a chance of winning the next election. His survival prospects will be reduced if the party loses the Glasgow East byelection on July 24.
Describing being Prime Minister as "the best job in the world", he said: "You can't be deterred by people criticising you ... If you believe in something strongly enough, you get on with it."
- INDEPENDENT
