Gordon Brown: 'I'm like Bronte's Heathcliff'

The Prime Minister likened himself to Bronte's dark, brooding vengeful character who died a broken man haunted by the ghost of his former lover whose body he exhumed twice.

The comparison was made in an interview in New Statesman magazine which was designed to soften the image of Mr Brown.

Gordon Brown has likened himself to Heathcliff, the brooding, intense character in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.

The Prime Minister is normally at pains to avoid being compared with other figures but his guard dropped in an interview with New Statesman, published today, in which the interviewer, Gloria De Piero, suggested to Mr Brown that many women viewed him as a Heathcliff-like figure.