During my time at the BBC, I worked for many bosses, who ranged from, in one instance, a bullying, vengeful psychopath, to several genuine leaders with a near-saintly ability to absorb a huge amount of pressure and remain equable and recognisably human. (And, yes, there were a few useless twats along the way – but very few.)
The BBC employed some 20,000 people when I worked there, and, unsurprisingly, a handful of rotters did float to the top – or, at least, very near it. These were usually ex-programme makers with impressive track records who’d been appointed to senior management, a role for which they displayed no particular aptitude. They shouted and bullied and undermined to protect and extend their empires and their fragile egos. They were known as “BAFTA Bastards”, because they’d usually picked up an industry gong or two along the way.
The rest of us knew who they were, and we knew their achievements rendered them untouchable. Greg Dyke’s habit of organizing away-day talkathons for all the corporation’s so-called senior staff meant that the existence of these psychologically inadequate human beings in our midst finally got a public airing. (I’ve no idea whether anything was subsequently done about them, but I certainly hope so: they were ghastly to deal with.)
Now, the reason why the BAFTA Bastards were bastards, I always assumed, was that they weren’t particularly good at whatever job they’d last been promoted to. Being able to produce an award-winning programme doesn’t mean you’ll be any good at departmental strategy, or handling a large staff, or at juggling a mass of priorities: but aging production staff have to move up to make way for ambitious young Turks gagging for a chance to prove their worth. So talented people who’d probably been heaped with praise and festooned with prizes since school suddenly found themselves in early middle age doing jobs they weren’t particularly good at, and which offered them little creative pleasure, or the compensatory visceral excitement that programme-making can provide.
Some of them – no matter how inflated their salaries – had a tendency to use psychological terror to get their own way.
Which brings us to Gordon Brown, a man whose public and private personas appear perfectly matched. However hard his “team” try to persuade us otherwise, he is evidently humourless, cheerless, anhedonic, vengeful, rude, impatient and bullying. (We already possess conclusive evidence of his utter incompetence.) Like the BAFTA Bastards, he’s been relentlessly fast-tracked and lauded all his life: it’s only during the past couple of years that the wider public has begun to realize just what destruction he has wrought since Labour came to power in 1997. Until quite recently, even sensible commentators were busy assuring us of the man’s competence: we now know better.
But the issue of the moment isn’t his uselessness as Chancellor and Prime Minister: it’s his appalling behaviour, his lack of self-control. In short, why is he so horrible?
The Science Fiction writer, A. E. Van Vogt, coined the term “Right Man” in 1954, to describe a subset of dominant males who cannot ever bear to admit they’re wrong - partly because they harbour strong feelings of inferiority which they keep ruthlessly hidden from themselves. They tend to give way to uncontrollable rages (often against those closest to them) when the world refuses to rearrange itself to fit their desires or to support their own self-image. Interestingly, success makes no difference to their behaviour – they keep on exploding, and they keep on being miserable:
"The main problem… is that they are bound to feel that the world has
treated them unfairly. And the normal human reaction to a sense of
unfairness is an upsurge of self-pity. Self-pity and the sense of injustice make
them vulnerable and unstable. And we have only to observe such people to
see that they are usually their own worst enemies. Their moods alternate
between aggressiveness and sulkiness, both of which alienate those who
might otherwise be glad to help them. If they possess some degree of charm
or intelligence, they may succeed in making themselves acceptable to other
people; but sooner or later the resentment and self-pity break through, and
lead to mistrust and rejection."
This extract is from Colin Wilson’s brilliant 1984 book, A Criminal History of Mankind where he discusses A. E. Van Vogt’s theory at some length. An excellent series of quotes is featured in this Finnish blog (don’t worry – it’s in English).
You don’t have to be a psychoanalyst to realize that our Prime Minister is a deeply unhappy man given to irrational rages and unable to admit that he is wrong about anything. He isn’t – as many have conjectured – a psychopath, because he simply isn’t plausible enough.
He is a classic Right Man, and that means he’s unable to control his behaviour, and, therefore, utterly unfit for office.
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