Long-serving PMs are history, says Brown

THE days of prime ministers staying in power for more than a decade are over because the era of 24-hour news has shortened the shelf life of politicians, Gordon Brown said yesterday.

The former Labour prime minister, who occupied 10 Downing Street between 2007 and 2010, claimed the hourly news cycle meant voters got bored quickly if they were stuck with the same personalities.

He also suggested that the constant invasion into politicians’ private lives made it hard for them to survive.

Saying the country would never again have a prime minister serving 11 years like Margaret Thatcher, Mr Brown told the Hay Festival: ‘There will be no ten years of any other prime minister again.

‘The 24-hour nature of news moves so very quickly and people get bored very quickly with personalities. They find out about them and move on.

‘It is so invasive and everything about your personal life is investigated – I am fed up with that personally, but that is how it is.’

He said it was no longer possible to have a long political career like William Gladstone in the 19th century, serving 12 years as prime minister.

He added: ‘People have got a shelf life in politics. You have probably got six years at the top of politics and that is about it.

‘Politics is a very different game… You will not have people who will have ten or 20 years at the top of politics in the future.’

Britain’s longest-serving prime minister was Sir Robert Walpole, who was in office for 20 years in the 18th century, followed by William Pitt the Younger, who served for a total of 18 years in two stints as prime minister between 1783 and 1806.

In recent years, Tony Blair was in power for a decade, while John Major and David Cameron both lasted for six.

In his speech yesterday, the pro-European Mr Brown also said he did not believe Britain would succeed in leaving the EU.

But he called on politicians to tackle the issues that caused people to vote for Brexit before turning to a second referendum.

He said: ‘I believe we will be in Europe in the next few years and I believe we can win this argument.

‘If you go into a second referendum and have not dealt with these issues I am raising, then we are not well prepared – we have got to prepare.’