Gordon Brown’s problems with his cabinet colleagues reflect the clannish rivalries of Scottish society, argues allan massie in the second part of our series
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Scots dominate the Labour Party and the government of the United Kingdom; hence the so-called "Scottish Raj". But they are no band of brothers, unless you take Cain and Abel to be the pattern of fraternal relationships.
The Scots are a clannish people, rarely united, except against the English, and not always even then. The in-fighting which characterises this Labour government has its roots in the divisions and rivalries within Scottish society.
Take Blair and Brown. Inasmuch as Blair is a Scot he is an anglified one, like his former flatmate, the Lord Chancellor, Charlie Falconer. Anglified Scots are viewed with suspicion and disdain back home, regarded
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| Gordon Brown’s resentment of the Prime Minister is founded in something other than thwarted ambition |
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as scarcely Scots at all. Brown on the other hand is Scottish through and through - the Protestant work-ethic made flesh. At university (Oxford) Blair played in a rock-band. As an Edinburgh student Brown was politically active and campaigned successfully to be the university's first-ever student rector.
The anglified Scot is British by taste, temperament and instinct; Brown only because the United Kingdom makes sense to him. An east-coast Presbyterian, son of a Church of Scotland minister, he goes out of his way to emphasise his Britishness. Blair has never needed to do that.
Brown's resentment of the Prime Minister is founded in something other than thwarted ambition. He sees himself, as a Calvinist, as one of God's Elect; to him Blair is what the 17th century Covenanters, Brown's spiritual ancestors, called a "Laodicean", lukewarm in the faith.
Yet there is more common ground between Blair and Brown than Brown and his new rival John Reid. This isn't a matter of policies; all 
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