Emotional and demanding, but Brown 'is never a bully'

Lord Mandelson said the Prime Minister was emotional, demanding and impatient but not a bully after a new book detailed a string of alleged outbursts.

The book, by Observer political commentator Andrew Rawnsley, said Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell was so concerned he delivered a "verbal warning" to the PM.

Downing Street denied the "malicious" allegations and the Cabinet Office said Sir Gus had not "asked for an investigation of the Prime Minister".

But Mr Rawnsley said he was "100 per cent sure", based on first-hand evidence, that Sir Gus had looked into Mr Brown's behaviour and warned him to calm down.

His book – The End of the Party – includes accounts of Mr Brown pulling a secretary from her chair, "roughly shoving" an aide and four-letter word-filled rants that frightened staff.

The book risks undermining recent efforts to portray a softer side of the PM – such as in his television interview with Piers Morgan – although it was also reported to show examples of Mr Brown's skill at dealing sensitively with staff facing family emergencies and bereavements.

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said they were "part of a pattern of allegations that raise questions about the Prime Minister's judgment and behaviour".

Mr Hague said staff deserved "the highest standards" of behaviour from politicians and suggested Mr Brown was not "cut out" for the highest office.

But Lord Mandelson denied Mr Brown was a bully and said a "shrinking violet" would not make a good leader of the country at a time of financial crisis.

"I don't think he so much bullies people as he is very demanding of people," he said.

"He is demanding of himself, he is demanding of people around him, he knows what he wants to do, he does not like taking no for an answer from anyone, he will go on and on until he has got a policy and an idea in the best possible form which he can then roll out.

"There is a degree of impatience about the man but what would you like, some sort of shrinking violet at the helm of the Government when we are going through such stormy waters?"

Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman said she didn't recognise the negative portrait of Mr Brown's behaviour which was firmly denied by Number 10.

"He passionately cares about things, but that's a good thing not a bad thing.

"These things that have been put in the book are wrong and have been denied and people will judge for themselves," she told Sky News Sunday Live.

And Home Secretary Alan Johnson said that in 17 years he had "never" heard Mr Brown swear or raise his voice and was in fact amazed at "how calm and how softly spoken he remains".

Mr Brown yesterday publicly insisted that he had never hit anyone in his life – although initial reports that the book would contain such allegations proved groundless.

"Let me just say, absolutely clearly, so that there is no misunderstanding about that: I have never, never hit anybody in my life," he said.

According to Mr Rawnsley's book, the Cabinet Secretary told Mr Brown: "This is no way to get things done" amid fears someone could submit a formal complaint. Sir Gus felt the need "to calm down frightened duty clerks, badly-treated phone operators and other bruised staff" and tell them "don't take it personally", Mr Rawnsley wrote.

The author said he had not written that Sir Gus had asked for a formal inquiry.

"I do not say he launched some 'formal inquiry', which would be an extraordinary thing for the Cabinet Secretary. I have no evidence of that. I say he made his own investigations and he gave a warning, a verbal warning, to the Prime Minister about his conduct and I am absolutely confident that happened – 100 per cent sure," he told Sky News.

"I was particularly careful in this area because it's obviously a very sensitive area to be sure that this wasn't gossip or hearsay or tittle-tattle. The sources were 24-carat... first-hand sources."

Lord Mandelson said: "If I had to make a choice and put my money on whether Andrew Rawnsley is telling the truth or the Cabinet Secretary, I would put my money on the Cabinet Secretary."