Is Brown On Drugs For Depression?

Startling claims the struggling Supreme Leader suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and depression raise doubts whether deluded Brown is fit for purpose. Is Brown 'on drugs for depression'?

The prime minister is a man too ill to be holding the Office. That is the stark conclusion of a senior civil servant, according to blogger and journalist, John Ward, who claims Brown is suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder as well as drug controlled depression.

The Orange Party often lapses into adjectival reporting with a deluded Brown here and a struggling Supreme Leader there and has long pondered and posted whether it will be men in grey suits or white coats who will come and take him away. But that's born out of sheer frustration, rather than any evidence of Brown's mental condition.

On his website notbornyesterday.org Ward claims there are signs the PM is taking powerful drugs to control both depression and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Ward bases his claims on a tip-off from a senior civil servant that Brown has recently been given a "long list of forbidden foods", spilling the beans that Brown had been banned from eating and drinking several specific things like cheese, Chianti and over-ripe avocados "because of the drugs he's on".

Apparently certain foods are banned for people taking MAOI drugs used to treat major depression when other anti-depressant drugs have failed. The MAOI drugs can be potentially dangerous if the patient eats or drinks the wrong thing.

A high-ranking treasury official told nby "In both a physical and mental sense, the Prime Minister is a very sick man, seriously disabled."

Another government source claimed "He is now on pills which restrict the foods he can eat and what he can drink. He is losing the sight of his good eye quite rapidly. It's a mess, and nobody knows what to do".

Rumours about Brown's health and mental state are nothing new. It's on record he's already blind in his left eye and has been losing sight in his right.

Back in 2004, Simon Heffer writing in the Spectator saw the writing on the wall. The prospect of Brown becoming PM, he wrote, should fill all sane people with dread. Brown, he observed, displayed many signs of Asperger's Syndrome. Rude, socially disorientated with obsessive topics of conversation, insisting on rules, insisting on routines.

The signs are there. Ballooning weight brought on by bunkered Brown's junk food binge. A gift for satirists with a demented YouTube video. The constant clunking fist and jaw clenching habit at PMQs and embarrassing need to churn out tractor statistics with every parliamentary answer.

An obsession with "just getting on with the job", "global problems require global solutions", ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Nothing can be proved. Downing Street can deny, spin or dismiss it all as anti-Brown smears. But Ward points out that "Brown's entourage must be sending out strict dietary requirements ahead of his regularly catered public engagements; one could even monitor what he eats on such occasions."

"It's a farce and utterly disgraceful," says Ward. "There isn't a mandarin in Whitehall who's unaware of Brown's condition ... yet won't lift a finger to bring it to the public's attention. We are being let down at every turn by the spineless Establishment running this country."

If true then why hasn't it all come out? Is it Westminster's best kept open secret? Fed-up and frustrated bloggers are forever moaning about the 'prime mentalist'?

Fleet Street editors have a habit of keeping schtum with a pact for the sake of a high office of state or the high ranking elite - until someone spills the beans or there's a deliberate timely leak in an Edward and Mrs Simpson moment.

Significantly, bully-boy Brown's rule by fear, smear and blackmail with a ruthless cabal of 'reservoir dogs' was quick to come out in the press - but only after Guido's McPoison scandal and Smeargate revelations. And they're still at it, smearing the new Army chief.

Upside down loyalty comes from some Labour MPs, resigned to a savage beating at the general election, mistakenly believing if Billy-no-mates Brown is down and out, that beating would turn into a total wipe-out. It suits the Tories to keep Incapability Brown. They'd do anything to leave liability Brown where he is.

His temper tantrums, throwing things around and screaming at secretaries "Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me", are reported more as a joke rather than symptoms of an underlying mental state and cause for concern. Are many a true word only spoken in jest?

The die is cast. Alea iacta est. The battle for hearts and minds and votes has been lost. Opinion polls cite boring Brown's ever dwindling popularity for a fall in Party ratings. The Sun has called his leadership into question over the handling of the Afghan war which rightly captures and reflects the public mood.

Bouncy Brown reportedly returned refreshed from his long summer hols. But Macavity Brown had a miserable first week back – the handling of the al-Megrahi controversy, the handling of Brown's War. Lurching from one disaster to another.

The pressure on beleaguered Brown is mounting as the conference leaving party and general election draw closer. The Guardian's Matin Kettle has already kicked off the Brown coup season.

Two-faced Brown's double-dealing over Lockerbie prompted the Orange Party to ask: Can Brown survive the Lockerbie storm? While not touching directly on Brown's mental state, Peter Oborne asks those questions in Saturday's Mail, reaching the conclusion that Brown is simply not up to the job.

The issue now is whether the country can afford "yet more of Brown's weakness, dithering, dishonesty and evasion." It is time he says, Gordon Brown, was cut adrift.

Evasive, indecisive and unpersuasive - how can such a Prime Minister govern, asks Matthew d'Ancona in the Sunday Telegraph. His damning character flaws have been laid bare.

Battered Brown is clinging on to power in the vane hope he can fulfil his lifelong ambition to become an 'elected' prime minister. But Oborne reckons Brown may be approaching his Cromwell moment: 'You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!'

Heffer, in his 2004 article, referred to Brown as a conviction politician "so convinced of his rectitude that he seems to think those with a different opinion must require psychiatric help."

As Paul Merton once quipped on Have I Got News For You: "You've got to feel sorry for the man - he's waited all this time to become prime minister only to realise he's not up to the job."

That's enough to drive anyone round the bend.