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Britain's Brown hits back as bullying row escalates
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Britain's Brown hits back as bullying row escalates
AFP - Tuesday, February 23
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File photo shows a cleaner polishing the door of Number 10 Downing Street in London. The new book by political journalist Andrew Rawnsley claims Prime Minister Gordon Brown grabbed one staff member by the jacket lapels and shouted at him, punched the back of a car seat after receiving bad news and repeatedly swore at advisors.
LONDON (AFP) - – British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has hit back over allegations he bullied his staff, in a row that has heaped pressure on the government months before elections.
In his first direct response to accusations that his fiery temper horrified his staff, Brown dismissed the story that the country's top civil servant had been compelled to give him a verbal warning about his behaviour.
Gus O'Donnell "has made it clear that he's had no inquiries, there's been no reprimand, there's been no private message to me... (The) story is completely wrong," Brown told the Economist magazine Monday.
Brown's comments came hours after his spokesman issued a robust denial on behalf of the civil servant over the allegation which was published in book extracts in a Sunday newspaper.
Extracts from the book written by political commentator Andrew Rawnsley, which were published in the Observer, claimed that Brown subjected staff to verbal tirades and once grabbed an advisor by the lapels.
"(Gus O'Donnell) would like to make clear that he has never raised concerns with the Prime Minister about him acting in a bullying or intimidatory manner in relation to (Downing Street) staff, let alone giving him any sort of verbal warning," said the premier's spokesman.
But Rawnsley attacked the official responses, saying they were not straightforward denials of the allegations in his book.
"One person's idea of a verbal warning could be another person's private word," he told BBC television, insisting on the truth of his accounts and the reliability of his sources.
The strong government denials mark a fresh push to draw a line under the furore as unofficial campaigning gathers pace for a general election which must be held by June, which Brown's Labour party is tipped to lose to the opposition Conservatives.
Conservative leader David Cameron called Monday for a parliamentary official to be allowed to investigate the "serious" bullying claims, saying they were evidence of "another unseemly mess" within Brown's government.
The book accuses Brown of ordering a secretary out of her chair and taking over the keyboard himself because she was "not typing fast enough", while a seat in his official car was "flecked with black marks" where he allegedly stabbed it with his pen in frustration.
The allegations may have already dented Labour party strategists' attempts to soften Brown's image ahead of the vote.
The prime minister recently gave an hour-long television interview in which he spoke candidly about holding his daughter Jennifer before she died days after her birth, in what was seen as an attempt to humanise his dour image.
A damage-limitation exercise following the emergence of the allegations was undercut when the head of an anti-bullying helpline came forward and said the prime minister's staff had contacted the service.
But Brown's top lieutenant, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, charged that the move by Christine Pratt, chief executive of the National Bullying Helpline, was evidence the allegations amounted to a pre-election plot.
"It now looks like more of a political operation that's under way directed at the prime minister personally," said Mandelson, Brown's de facto deputy.
The Conservatives hit back by accusing Mandelson of attempting to "smear" Pratt.
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