Number 10 Downing Street

Born in Scotland, Gordon Brown grew up in the industrial town of Kirkcaldy. He began Edinburgh University at 16, becoming the youngest fresher there since the war. It was at university that he began to have problems with his sight and doctors diagnosed him with a detached retina caused by an injury sustained in his final game for his school rugby team. Mr Brown gained a First Class honours degree in History and became the youngest ever Rector of Edinburgh University in 1972.

Mr Brown became MP for Dunfermline East in the 1983 General Election with a majority of 11,000 and shared his first office in the House of Commons with Tony Blair, where the two became friends. Mr Brown later became Shadow Chancellor and backed Tony Blair for the leadership of the Labour Party. Working together they won a landslide majority in 1997.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown presided over the longest ever period of growth. He also made the Bank of England independent and delivered an agreement at the Gleneagles Summit in 2005 to support the world’s poorest countries and tackle climate change. His passion for global justice was reflected in his negotiation of debt cancellation for the world’s poorest nations and the tripling of the development budget.

It was during his time as Chancellor that Mr Brown proposed to Sarah Macaulay and seven months later they were married at their home in North Queensferry.

Mr Brown became Prime Minister on the 27th of June 2007 after Tony Blair left office. During his time as Prime Minister he oversaw changes such as the introduction of neighbourhood policing in every area, a legally-enforceable right to early cancer screening and treatment, and the world’s first ever Climate Change Act, which came into force in autumn 2008.

The greatest challenge Mr Brown faced in office was the worldwide financial crisis and the subsequent recession. In April 2009, he hosted the G20 Summit in London where world leaders committed to make an additional $1.1 trillion available to help the world economy through the crisis and restore credit, growth and jobs. They also pledged to strengthen financial supervision and regulation.

UK combat operations in Iraq, which had begun during his predecessor’s time in office, came to an end under Mr Brown. British forces withdrew from the country at the end of April 2009. Mr Brown regularly visited Iraq and Afghanistan and in December 2009, he became the first Prime Minister for some considerable time to stay in a war zone when he stayed overnight in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Mr Brown became heavily involved in international negotiations to reach an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Treaty and in December 2009 he attended the United Nations summit in Copenhagen. Following the summit, he pledged to lead an international campaign to turn the agreements reached at Copenhagen into a legally binding treaty.

During his time in office, Mr Brown worked with his Irish counterpart Brian Cowen to negotiate the devolution of policing and justice powers in Northern Ireland. An agreement was finally reached in February 2010 and the powers were passed to Northern Ireland’s government in April.