Gordon Brown

He was born in Glasgow, Scotland to Elizabeth Brown and John Brown, who served as the minister of Church of Scotland for a brief period of time.

He attended Kirkcaldy West Primary School and won a scholarship to the University of Edinburgh, where he studied history and served as the Rector of the University of Edinburgh. He graduated from the university in 1972.

From 1976 to 1980, he was employed as a lecturer in politics at Glasgow College of Technology and later at the Open University.

He switched careers and became a current affairs journalist for Scottish TV in 1980. While working, he also obtained his doctorate in history from the University of Edinburgh in 1982. The title of his thesis was ‘The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918–29’.

In 1983, he won a representative seat as a Member of Parliament for Dunfermline East and befriended Tony Blair around the same time.

He authored ‘Maxton: A Biography’ in 1986 and authored a number of other books such as ‘Where There is Greed’ and ‘Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization’.

He was designated as shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer on July 24, 1992; a position he held till May 2, 1997.

During his Labor leadership, Brown proposed a number of policy initiatives, titled the ‘manifesto of change’, which included a clampdown of corruption and and a code of conduct for ministers.

He is also responsible for building a number of eco-towns around UK and worked for the improvement of the National Health Service schemes around the country.

Although he supported the Iraq War, he went to great lengths to support the family members who lost their loved ones in war in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Apart from formulating policies, he has authored a number of books, which received mixed reviews like, ‘Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the first Crisis of Globalization’ and ‘The Change we choose: Speeches’.