Although we know our Prime Minister well enough by now not to confuse with him with a ray of sunshine, it still comes as a surprise to learn in books like this what a terrible old grumpytroosers he can be. Hosting a small dinner party at Number 10, he was happily directing his guests to their places when he was called away to take a telephone call. The guests, in his absence, selected their own seats. I hope somebody took one for the team and chose a place next to his. Even so, he was not amused. The brown mist descended. “I didn’t sit you all down”, he said, like Daddy Bear noticing for the first time that someone had been eating his porridge. “No, no, you might as well stay where you are”. Pleasantries concluded, he then swivelled on his chair, as Peter Watts recalls, ‘so that he almost had his back to everybody, and leaned his head on his arm. For the rest of the meal he was monosyllabic, sulking because he had lost control of the seating plan. The plates had not even been cleared when quite suddenly, without saying anything, he just got up and left’. And so ended another evening’s merriment in Downing Street. Of course, even the greatest leaders have off days. With this Prime Minister though, one looks in vain for evidence of an on day. “The truth is”, explained Douglas Alexander, Brown’s election chief, “we have spent ten years working with this guy, and we don’t actually like him. We have always thought that the longer the British public had to get to know him, the less they’d like him as well”. Hence the election that nearly was. As Labour Party general secretary, Peter Watt was painfully aware of the tremendous expense that went into planning for that campaign, money they could ill-afford now that all the donors had put their chequebooks away. To add insult to injury, he then found out that after ten years of plotting to replace Tony Blair, Mr Brown didn’t have any ideas for his first manifesto. ‘Everyone around him thought there was some big plan sitting in a bottom drawer somewhere, just ready to be pulled out when the moment came. In fact, there was nothing’. This broadside of a memoir will not be lightly forgotten by Labour high command. In addition to Brown's scheming and thunderous sulks, it exposes the desperate state of the party’s finances, how shamefully reliant it became on a handful of extremely wealthy businessmen. Since no charges were brought, it would obviously be deeply improper for me to speculate on the motives of such generous benefactors. It is well known that everyone who donates to a political party does so in a spirit of stainless altruism. Nonetheless, ‘Inside Out’ is a book that no Labour supporter can read without embarrassment and pain. The rest of us will just be glad that one of these people, finally, has told the truth.