Guardian: Gordon Brown: Gifted Man Ground Down by Success of a Rival

[Captain Hilts]

REALLY interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/10/general-election-2010-gordon-brown

...
Both also knew a man who had been a gifted student politician who ran rings around the stuffy Edinburgh University establishment, rose almost effortlessly through Labour's ranks to be shadow chancellor, but saw the ultimate prize snatched away from him by a younger rival, less substantial but more confident: his friend and nemesis, Tony Blair. "You've ruined my life," became a taunt he would hurl at Blair. It gnawed away at him.

The paradox of Brown's career is that of a man blessed with intellectual gifts, drive and ambition who was simultaneously cursed with a debilitating self-doubt which easily turned to mistrust and suspicion of all but the most devoted allies. For every MP who spoke of his personal acts of kindness and his high-minded strivings to
curb child poverty – not just in Britain – another would recall brusque, high-handed rudeness.
...
When Blair faced down Brown over which of them would run for the vacant Labour leadership after Smith's sudden death in 1994, he promised Brown unique sway over economic domestic policy. It allowed him to build a power base that would hamper Blair's (sometimes ill-considered) pro-market plans for reform, across the board from NHS hospital trusts and academy schools to student tuition fees and pensions.

Often there was merit in the case being made by both men and goodwill between them too. They spent billions to reverse, albeit only modestly, the Tory legacy of child poverty and inequality. They rebuilt schools and doubled the NHS budget – slashing waiting times – to better effect than the Daily Mail would concede. They introduced the national minimum wage.

What so often poisoned their dealings and repeatedly mangled New Labour's effectiveness in its early, popular years was the personal dimension. Blair rightly felt that his chancellor was willfully blocking him, not to mention keeping his budget and other plans secret. Brown felt with equal justice that Blair had promised to step aside as early as 2003 – and repeatedly changed his mind. Key witnesses confirm both points of view.