The British media have given prominence recently to allegations that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is a bully who intimidates those who work for him. It has also been alleged that some of his staff have briefed against Cabinet ministers with whom Brown disagrees. The government has dismissed these charges as fiction designed to boost opposition attempts to portray the government as dysfunctional.

Brown is widely known in Whitehall as having a foul temper. Lord Mandelson, in all but name deputy to the prime minister, has admitted that Brown feels "passionately" about issues. The number of staff asking for transfers from working in the prime minister's office is high and there do not seem to be many volunteers seeking transfers within the civil service to work at No. 10 Downing Street.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, whom it is well known that the prime minister wanted to replace last year with his protege, school secretary Ed Balls, said in a recent TV program that all hell had been let loose against him when he said that Britain faced an unprecedentedly severe economic recession at a time when Brown wanted for electoral purposes to show that the economy was improving.