Gordon Brown fabricated a capitalist rather than working-class background

Evidence

Brown told the Confederation of British Industry conference that ‘business is in my blood’. His mother had been a company director and ‘I was brought up in an atmosphere where I knew exactly what was happening as far as business was concerned’. He was, indeed he had always been, one of them. The only problem is that it was not true. As his mother subsequently admitted, she would never have called herself ‘a business woman’: she had only ever done some ‘light administrative duties’ for ‘a small family firm’ and had given up the job when she married, three years before young Gordon was even born. While there have been Labor politicians who have tried to invent working class backgrounds for themselves before, Brown is the first to try and invent a capitalist background. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 115

Categorization

• XREF: Illustrates Newsinger’s comparison with Blair the ‘Last Man’ — the Nietzschean End of History figure Fisher ties back to his core capitalist-realism thesis. — connects to: Labour politicians invented working-class pasts, but Brown was first to fabricate a capitalist one — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 115; Brown’s forced conversion to neoliberalism damaged him where Blair’s cost nothing — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 116

Related

• Labour politicians invented working-class pasts, but Brown was first to fabricate a capitalist one (similarity 0.91)
• Gordon Brown was the first Labour politician to invent a capitalist background. (similarity 0.90)
• Brown’s forced conversion to neoliberalism damaged him where Blair’s cost nothing (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Labour politicians invented working-class pasts, but Brown was first to fabricate a capitalist one #corroborates (1.00) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 115
• Brown’s forced conversion to neoliberalism damaged him where Blair’s cost nothing #qualifies (0.70) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 116