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It was not supposed to be like this. Gordon Brown had wanted to be prime minister for years. His ambition had burned so brightly that it tarnished his relationship with his rival Tony Blair. He and his team had manoeuvred and plotted and planned for a decade to secure the premiership, seeing off all rivals within Labour so that he was appointed without election. “I will do my utmost,” he told us as he walked through the door of No 10 as prime minister for the first time in June 2007. But in the end, his utmost was not enough. Mr Brown announced he was to leave office less than three years into the job, and will serve barely more time than James Callaghan, the last Labour prime minister to be appointed without winning a general election. Few know when Mr Brown first set his heart on the job. But from the moment he was elected to parliament in 1983, few can have been ignorant that No 10 was his aim. He rose swiftly through the ranks – promoted to the shadow cabinet by Neil Kinnock, along with his friend Tony Blair. But when Mr Kinnock’s replacement John Smith died suddenly in 1994 it was Mr Blair who replaced him as Labour leader. Blair deal Mr Brown agreed to stand aside but the details of the deal haunted the New Labour project as supporters fought over what had exactly had been agreed. In government, as chancellor, Mr Brown gave the Bank of England independence and enjoyed initially prolonged growth and low inflation. He wielded control over large areas of domestic …