No. 5: Giles Coren
GC and GB: two douchebags with a massively over-inflated sense of their own merits who are prone to tantrums and bullying of subordinates. And then those self-same subordinates enjoy a modicum of revenge by leaking evidence of that utter douchebaggery to the press.
Coren, though, is a moderately talented writer who can narrow down to four the number of people whom he fears must hate him. (We think it’s greater than that, Giles, but never worry).
In the case of Brown, though, leaving aside the fact that his job is of slightly more consequence than the where-a-middle-class-tosser-should-have-lunch columnist on The Times, the number of people who hate him at first hand is far, far greater. How many people could have leaked - and confirmed this story?
The stories are seeping out from No. 10. The other day, Gordon Brown was convinced that Dominic Grieve, the shadow Home Secretary, had made such a strong attack on 42-day detention as to impugn his commitment to national security. Although Downing Street advisers trawled and Googled, they could not find the quote. Their boss expressed gratitude for their efforts in the way that a sergeant-major would thank a recruit for a speck of dust on his rifle. Mr Brown then stationed himself at a terminal. For the next four hours, he sat there unavailingly, emanating gloom and rage. The non-psychiatric interpretation of his behaviour is termed “the playing politics with national security syndrome”.
Or previous tales of mobile phone-tossing, secretary-bullying tittle tattle?
Either way, the number of people who know him and loathe him, and those who have never met him but wish he would never trouble their thoughts again must surely exceed those who feel the same way about Giles Coren.