I often find it difficult to distinguish between Howard Hughes and the sociopath Gordon Brown.
One is a wealthy man, noted for his bizarre behaviour and reclusiveness, whilst the other is a Texan.
Mr Brown, who is the part-time MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (although his salary certainly isn't a part-time one), is a notorious thuggish bully.
His thuggery and inappropriate behaviour as prime minister led to several people in his office contacting anti-bullying charities for help, while the long-serving head of the British civil service, Gus O'Donnell, was so concerned by the Labour MP's behaviour that he confronted Brown over his treatment of staff. One member of his staff was bullied so remorselessly by the then prime minister that he was forced to take time off work.
Brown is consistently polled as among the worst prime ministers ever, his three year term lurching from disaster to disaster, the worst of which was the financial collapse of the London banking system, which happened on his watch as a direct result of looser regulation introduced by Brown as finance minister.
He's not, in short, the sort of person one wants to front a campaign.
But, in the time-honoured tradition of Labour getting it spectacularly wrong (they continue, for instance, to send violent criminal George Foulkes on television to sell their message that Scotland is far too small, and the Scots far too poor and far too stupid to govern ourselves), the opposition party saw fit to make Brown the leader of their breakaway movement from the main, Tory-led, war-criminal-associated, anti-Scotland camapaign.
Today, Brown emerged, blinking, into the sunlight, and made a rare unpaid trip to address a meeting of "United With Labour", a Better Together front organisation which seems to consist of a shell of a website, and the hysterical cackling of Mad Margaret Curran in the background.
He came to this very ward to address a secret "rally" of the above organisation. And very welcome he is too. He can see now, with his own eyes, the shipyards which have rotted and closed under the more than three hundred years of the Union.
He can see with his own eyes the poverty of this district, caused directly by the Union, and exacerbated by his abolition of the £0,10 tax rate in order to give tax cuts to the millionaires whose arses jostled for position with Brown's on the Labour front bench, and which millionaires were able to buy not just seats in Parliament, but actual ministerial positions *waves to Lord Sainsbury*.
But this didn't seem to affect him, and on he went, with his speech, at the Pearce Institute on Govan Road.
Shamelessly, Mr Brown, alongside the usual "positive case for the Union" about how we're too wee, too poor, too stupid, yadda yadda yadda, had the breathtaking hypocrisy to use the line "We allocate resources not on the basis of nationality but on the basis of need" as some sort of argument against independence.
He came to this very ward to address a secret "rally" of the above organisation. And very welcome he is too. He can see now, with his own eyes, the shipyards which have rotted and closed under the more than three hundred years of the Union.
He can see with his own eyes the poverty of this district, caused directly by the Union, and exacerbated by his abolition of the £0,10 tax rate in order to give tax cuts to the millionaires whose arses jostled for position with Brown's on the Labour front bench, and which millionaires were able to buy not just seats in Parliament, but actual ministerial positions *waves to Lord Sainsbury*.
But this didn't seem to affect him, and on he went, with his speech, at the Pearce Institute on Govan Road.
Shamelessly, Mr Brown, alongside the usual "positive case for the Union" about how we're too wee, too poor, too stupid, yadda yadda yadda, had the breathtaking hypocrisy to use the line "We allocate resources not on the basis of nationality but on the basis of need" as some sort of argument against independence.
This is an argument which is trotted out by Labour types quite often: that Scotland must not have independence because it would abandon working people in Newcastle, and Manchester, and Leeds, and Southampton to the Conservative Party.
It is a nonsense argument. If the people of England do not wish to have a Conservative government, they have a simple option: don't vote for them.
It is a nonsensical argument for another reason: at no time, ever, has Scottish votes ever changed an English Conservative (or Conservative-Liberal) majority or plurality into a British Labour government.
It is an argument based on deliberate and malicious deceit.
But it is also an argument based on another type of deceit.
Mr Brown argues that we don't allocate resources on the basis of nationality. Well, frankly, I have as much in common with a worker from Cairo or Bucharest as one from Coventry or Bradford. I have more in common with a worker from Johannesburg or Sofia than a millionaire from York or Salisbury.
But Mr Brown, in 2007, decided that it was necessary to allocate resources on the basis of nationality rather than need.
That is why he decided, against the pattern of other EU states, that he would effectively ban working people from Romania and Bulgaria - EU citizens all - from sharing in our wealth.
This was exacerbated by his notorious "White Britain" policy, where in a despicable speech to Labour - LABOUR! - supporters, he told "the foreigners" that they ought to "go home", declaring that the United Kingdom should be a land of "British Jobs for British Workers".
That's the true nationalism of Gordon Brown.
It's fine to be a British nationalist, campaigning to keep the foreigners out, spreading a hate and fear of "other", and demanding that not a penny of the wealth generated in the City doesn't go to help alleviate the suffering and discrimination of the Roma people. If you believe that, campaign for it.
But don't try and suggest that your motivation is some sort of noble international socialism when it's nothing more than a combination of narrow British nationalism, spiced up by a bit of dog-whistle racism.
And incidentally, Mr Gordon Brown, who claims to want to allocate resources on the basis of need, claimed more than the average annual salary - on top of his lavish wages - in "expenses" for turning up to work three times in the first six months of the year. He didn't turn up to vote against the Bedroom Tax. He didn't turn up to vote against Britain attacking Syria.
As a prime minister, he was a disaster, but as an MP he is a disgrace. The people of Kirkaldy and Cowdenbeath deserve better. Even if they are Fifers.
But Mr Brown, in 2007, decided that it was necessary to allocate resources on the basis of nationality rather than need.
That is why he decided, against the pattern of other EU states, that he would effectively ban working people from Romania and Bulgaria - EU citizens all - from sharing in our wealth.
This was exacerbated by his notorious "White Britain" policy, where in a despicable speech to Labour - LABOUR! - supporters, he told "the foreigners" that they ought to "go home", declaring that the United Kingdom should be a land of "British Jobs for British Workers".
That's the true nationalism of Gordon Brown.
It's fine to be a British nationalist, campaigning to keep the foreigners out, spreading a hate and fear of "other", and demanding that not a penny of the wealth generated in the City doesn't go to help alleviate the suffering and discrimination of the Roma people. If you believe that, campaign for it.
But don't try and suggest that your motivation is some sort of noble international socialism when it's nothing more than a combination of narrow British nationalism, spiced up by a bit of dog-whistle racism.
And incidentally, Mr Gordon Brown, who claims to want to allocate resources on the basis of need, claimed more than the average annual salary - on top of his lavish wages - in "expenses" for turning up to work three times in the first six months of the year. He didn't turn up to vote against the Bedroom Tax. He didn't turn up to vote against Britain attacking Syria.
As a prime minister, he was a disaster, but as an MP he is a disgrace. The people of Kirkaldy and Cowdenbeath deserve better. Even if they are Fifers.
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